Oiran no Gaijin The Foreign Courtesan
by Serenitychan13
Summary: A girl does something stupid and is sucked into preMeiji Japan. It is a lawless time. Men live in fear of each other. The strong prey on the weak. Parents sell their children. A pretty girl on the street is likely to be kidnapped and sold to the brothels.
1. Moon Book

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Prologue

"Moon Book"

"Ashley, wait up!" called a chipper voice. Its owner was juggling a heavy purse, an even heavier bookbag, a thick binder, and a homemade art portfolio and was still managing to run close to full tilt after her friend. "Ashley, come on! Don't just walk off and leave me!"

Ashley didn't answer - she just continued walking, hoping the idiot would just go away and leave her alone. However, she had no such luck and she knew it too. Her best friend for going on fourteen years was crazed in the morning and crabby in the afternoons. That was just the way things were. The brownish/blonde-haired girl blew the ever-recalcitrant lock of hair out of her face, held on to her binder just a little bit tighter and hitched up her bookbag. Unfortunately, this pause gave the piece of disturbance behind her a chance to catch up. She could clearly hear her friend's Birkenstocks scraping along the pavement. Rolling her eyes and heaving a tired sigh, Ashley turned around only to be almost knocked off her feet.

"Best friend!" squealed the auburn-haired girl with glasses, squeezing her irritated friend around the shoulders. "Come on! Best friend hug!"

"Nicole, go away," whined Ashley, shrugging her shoulders in an attempt to push her friend away. She just wanted to go to homeroom and sleep through announcements. "It's way too early in the morning for this!"

"But it's only..." began Nicole, looking at her wrist. "Crap! I never wear a watch! Hell if I know what time it is..."

Ashley shook her head and wondered why she had put up with this idiot for almost fourteen years. Then she smiled inwardly as she thought of exactly why she had put up with Nicole for going-on-fourteen years... Rolling her eyes, she dodged another one of Nicole's hugs and trudged into her homeroom. Nicole followed, singing the Sailor Moon theme song in Japanese. Ashley wanted to hit her for it, but like she had said, it was too early in the morning and she was just too damn tired.

_I'll hit 'er later,_ she thought as she dropped her bookbag on the floor by her desk and setting her binder and purse on top of the desk.

She slumped into the seat and folded her arms on the table part of it, hunching over and laying her head on her arms. Then she felt another sudden twinge of annoyance and the itching desire to throttle her best friend. Nicole was poking her repeatedly around the head and shoulders saying "Poke!" over and over. Ashley made a whiny "uh-uh" noise and shifted her head on her arms, as if trying to bury herself in the sleeves of her pea coat.

"Nicole! Go away!" she whined once more. "Go to your own homeroom or something, just leave me alone!"

Nicole pouted for a moment, then climbed over a few desks to get over where a couple of guys were playing paper football. One of them was just an immature nitwit who Nicole didn't particularly enjoy being around. The other was the guy she had "had it bad" for since the end of the sixth grade. It was sad really, since they were seniors now. Keith had just scored his sixth "touchdown" of the paper football game and was playfully ragging on his opponent.

"That was so not a touchdown," snapped Jarrett, pointing at the paper-and-tape "football" on the desk.

"It is too!" countered Keith.

Nicole calmly leaned over and put one finger beside the closest bit of the ball to the edge of the table. Besides just being around Keith, she had gotten rather into the game herself and had taken to refereeing it. This morning was no different. It made her feel good inside that Keith did not object to her presence. Using her abnormally long fingernails as miniature rulers, she ascertained that the shot had indeed not been a touchdown.

"Sorry Keith, not this time," she said apologetically, holding up her fingernail and pointing at it with the index fingernail of her other hand. "It was this far from the edge..."

"Damn," muttered Keith, though it was obvious he was not going to hold a grudge against Nicole for making the call in favor of the other guy.

It was always like that: Nicole followed Ashley to homeroom, annoyed the living hell out of her, then watched the boys play paper football and refereed until the warning bell rang. It rang at 7:55 like it always did and she jumped up. She grabbed her purse and hugged Keith in a hurry as she scampered out the door. The cold air stung her nose and ears as she sprinted across the campus, her black cape flapping uselessly around her knees. She threw the glass door open and sprinted inside. Her Birkenstocks flew off in her haste and she skidded down the rest of the hall in her socks and fell in a heap. People rolled their eyes and a few of them laughed at her entrance to homeroom. But that was just the way it happened in the mornings; Nicole was just doing what she always did.

At Lunch

Homeroom had been for the most part uneventful. The people on the announcements had no idea what they were doing and Nicole was sure she could do much better. First period, which happened to be chorus that day, was nothing special as usual. The boys wouldn't quiet down and listen to the teacher and she had so little control over the class that she couldn't very well make them. But that was nothing new. Art had been a fair example of a disaster, what with the idiots always looking over her shoulder or jolting her elbow on purpose. She could never get anything done like that. Problem solving had been a bitch that day; the not only was the problem insanely hard, but it took forever and no one was sure of the right answer. After that had been her AP psychology class, where she had been shown a video on eating disorders. She knew they were serious and that they were real diseases, but showing the video was a little on the side of overkill.

_Jeez, _she thought. _Every time a girl goes on a diet, they think she's tryin' to kill herself!_

Lunch revolved around second period, so that meant Nicole and first lunch, then a free period, then second lunch. She would be free for almost two hours! Those were two glorious hours that she could spend in the library. Nicole might not have been the best at getting her homework done on time, or at all, but she was smart and loved to read. So she tootled on back to the library and swept across the room like a storm with her cape billowing around her. With two hours to while away, she decided that maybe a nice thick book about pressing issues, like teens in court and women's rights would be about right. As she kicked off her shoes and settled in on her knees, she selected a book about crime and punishment. It wasn't about Japan, or else she couldn't have handled it. She already knew more than she wanted to about the legal system over there...

_Well it's not like that's what it's like now,_ said the small portion of her brain that thought rationally.

Rational thought could kiss Nicole's royal ass for all she cared. She didn't trust legal systems, not after all that she knew had happened with innocent people being killed and the guilty walking free and taking government positions. Mumbling a few Japanese swear words, she adjusted her position and turned another page. This two-page spread was about Bonnie and Clyde. She didn't know why she was reading this book, but something about it just intrigued her. It wasn't that she approved of what they did, - far from it -, but something about bandits had always gotten to her. That turned her thoughts to the handsome bandit from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon... Zhang Ziyi's character had been so mean to turn him out. Nicole smiled as she thought, _I would have run away with him..._

She shut the book about crime and punishment, bored with it, and stuck it back on the shelf in its proper place - the librarian was sort of OCD when it came to things like that. Her eyes drifted over the dust-jacketed spines of so many books that were probably older than she was. She was vacillating between the book about wizards and the book about magical creatures, only mildly interested, and was thinking about giving up altogether and heading for the fiction area. In fact, she would have, had she not seen the worn old book that lay flat beside the one about magical creatures.

The book was very old, probably older than the school that was over a hundred years old itself. There was no call number on the old leather spine and the book did not have a dust jacket. The title was hand-inscribed on the three-inch-wide spine, only it was in what appeared to be some kind of fictional language. Either that or it was in Latin... Nicole debated whether or not to take it to her English teacher and hope he could read it and decided against it. After all, what if it turned out to be something she really shouldn't be reading? Somehow, she had a feeling that this book did not belong to the library. Very, very carefully, she tried to edge the book off the shelf a little at time by pulling it with one finger.

"Yow!" yelped Nicole as the book seemed to throw itself forward and banged itself into her chest. "The freakin' book attacked me!"

Inside, she was rolling her eyes at herself.

_Way to not draw attention to yourself, Eisenstein..._ she thought sardonically.

She really hadn't wanted to draw attention to herself and the strange book. People were staring at her as though she had done something very odd. Granted, she had... She had yelled in a library, something she would never normally do, she had apparently hurled herself backwards and almost knocked a shelf over, and she was breathing as if she had just given birth. All the chattering voices stopped as the angry librarian stormed over to Nicole, his face red and his toupee about to fall off. Nicole looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes. He had yelled at her once before and it had been scary.

"I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!" she cried, tears of embarrassment and fear welling up in her eyes. "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!"

"Get OUT!" roared the librarian, pointing his finger at the door.

Nicole looked down in frustration and shame and saw that she was clutching a... dictionary? How in the world had that happened? As the librarian repeated his command, she scrambled to get her purse and slip her shoes back on. Flustered and still acutely ashamed of herself, she slammed the dictionary down and ran crying from the library. Where could she go now? She didn't need anyone to see her crying because then they would ask questions. All she wanted was to pretend that the last ten minutes had never happened at all. Well, that wasn't going to happen. Everyone in the library would be running to tell their friends what Nicole Barrington, the school freak show, had done this time.

She couldn't talk to Ashley about it - certainly not. Ashley would just say she didn't want to hear about it and that Nicole had just brought it on herself. Nicole hiccuped and started to sob. Ashley was the best best friend anybody could ever have, but sometimes she could be an insensitive wart. Then again, so could Nicole. Feeling helpless, alone, and unloved, Nicole stumbled off to find a good place to cry. Finally, she settled on the area behind what used to be the Convent. It was almost wooded there and she needed to be close to animals and plants right now. She knew that Ashley would already know about what had happened, but what about her parents? Surely the school would call them about it... Then she would really be in for it. They had said if she got in trouble at school, it would be doubled at home.

Something hard and heavy fell on her hand and she swore out loud. Looking down through tear-smudged glasses, she saw the book again! The front of it was more interesting than the spine. On the cover was beautiful hand-done painting of the moon with a book in the center of it. The whole painting had a lavender tone to it, contrasting softly with the harsh brown leather binding. Not thinking clearly, Nicole opened the book and flipped through a couple of pages. The words were in English, but it appeared to be Middle English. She could read some of it and the rest she could guess at.

The book was a spell book. There were beautiful color paintings of the spells in action. The pictures didn't move like they did in Harry Potter, but the effect was quite as astonishing. The book's pages were caught by a sudden wind and flipped with a swishing noise until the wind died down. Nicole stared at what was in front of her. The pages had fallen open to what looked like a scrying spell. It called for something reflective that she could see into. Normally scrying was done with a crystal ball, but that was just nonsense. Wasn't it? She turned to a page marked "Hydromansie." Hydro-what? Oh! Hydromancy! She had heard of that, but had never tried it. The spell was called Seeing Ball.

"To calle up ye orbe fore seen, take thee Three Cups of Clear Water," she read aloud, stumbling a bit over the language that she was not used to. "And say ye These Wordes... 'I Invoke The Ancestral Sea Of Ar'iartunon!'."

A puddle by her foot moved a little bit. Could it really be responding to her spell?

"Be ye warned, Yonge Witch, fore this Spell, improperlee done, shall have Serious Repurcussiones," she read, her brow furrowing.

What was that all about? Eh, from what she had read in Harry Potter, assuming all this was real, the most that would happen would be her winding up looking a bit strange. Oh well, people already stared at her. She put the book in her lap and pointed dramatically at the puddle by her foot.

"I Invoke The Ancestral Sea Of Ar'iartunon!" she whispered, jabbing her finger at the puddle.

A bubble popped on the surface, but nothing of note happened. She tried again, this time a little louder. This time, a tiny drop of water rose up, separated itself from the rest of the water and hung suspended above the surface for a moment. Now thoroughly astounded, Nicole looked down at the book. She stared at the words and they stared back at her. This couldn't be real, she told herself. Could it? Her brows knitted together again and she stared hard at the small puddle. There certainly wasn't the equivalent of three cups there... So what would happen if she did it again? She took a deep breath, concentrated, and pointed her finger at the puddle once more.

"I Invoke The Ancestral Sea Of Ar'iartunon!" she said in a strong, clear voice.

For a moment, nothing happened. Swallowing hard, Nicole lowered her arm and looked around sheepishly to see if anyone had been watching. To her relief, no one else from her free period was around. Then she looked down... In the center of the puddle, there were ripples shimmering along the surface. The water pulled itself up off the ground and formed itself into a perfect crystalline sphere, rising to Nicole's eye level. For a long moment, the water orb just hung there, motionless. But then the surface of it started to vibrate. The earth shook as the water in the soil was pulled to Nicole's water ball, which was growing bigger and bigger. The emergency siren went off around the school and the teachers started to herd people out. It was nothing like a fire drill - this was pandemonium. Nicole closed her eyes and in a moment she was in the center of the campus, standing on a hill of bone-dry dirt with a water orb the size of a beach ball swelling before her. It started to rain, but not a drop hit the ground as they all went flying to Nicole's water orb. Students and teachers alike had stopped trying to abandon the campus and were crowding around to see what was going on.

"It's Nicole!" someone shouted. "She's doing it!"

"How can she do that?" someone else demanded.

"I always knew she was an alien!" cried a science geek, rushing forward to take her picture.

The water ball shot out a tentacle of water and threw the boy bodily into the crowd, then withdrew back to its spherical body.

"NICOLE!" screamed Ashley. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"I DIDN'T MEAN TO!" Nicole yelled back, bracing her arms in front of her as the orb swelled to the size of a large yoga ball.

People were screaming. Some were shouting at Nicole, berating her and abusing her. Some were shouting at each other about Nicole, pointing and telling the nearest person who would listen about what was happening. Some people threw things at her, but the objects were repelled by the tentacles produced by the orb. The ground stopped shaking. Someone realized that Nicole's water ball had sucked the entire campus grounds and a few nearby yards dry. The rain was still rushing into the ball, which was now the size of a small car. Finally, sucked dry as the earth, the clouds disappeared from above the campus.

"What made it stop?" someone asked.

"I dunno..." their friend replied.

"What's up with Nicole?" yelled a member of the Japanese Culture club.

Nicole had stretched out one hand, as if she intended to touch the water ball. Oblivious to the cacophony of the chaos around her, she approached her creation. The closer she got to it, the darker the day became. Finally, when she was standing so that her hand was no more than a few inches away, the sky was a velvety black. The full moon hung in the sky and glowed lavender, making the water ball sparkle. Nicole shifted her foot to take one more tiny step. As her fingers made ghosting contact with the surface of the ball, it exploded. People screamed again as they were drenched by water rushing straight at them, hard enough to knock them over. Several people fell down and others were knocked over by those who fell near them.

"Hey!" yelled a male voice.

Everything went totally silent.

"Oh my God! Nicole's gone!" screamed Ashley.


	2. Topaz Eyes

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 1

"Topaz Eyes"

Nicole hadn't even had time to blink as the water had surrounded her in less than half a millisecond. But as far as she knew, nothing else had changed. She could still see the people standing around, helping each other up. A giggle escaped her lips as she saw how good some of the boys looked in wet shirts. That was when she noticed that something was amiss: if she was still there, why weren't they all rushing forward to do who-knew-what to her? Wasn't she in trouble? Didn't the students want to keep throwing things at her? She looked around her through the clear, glass-like surface of the bubble-thing that had now formed around her. People looked frightened and puzzled, but that was to be expected.

Confused, she reached out one hand and touched the clear surface. It was like feeling water in a water bed - she could tell there was water there, but her hand was not getting wet. She pushed on the surface again and it sprung back like gelatin as she pulled her hand away. All right, now this was turning way too weird, even for Nicole. She turned around on the spot where she stood - yep, there was a bubble completely surrounding her. She looked out at the people again and wondered why they all looked like they had seen a ghost or something. Some of the students were beginning to talk and point at her.

_That's funny_, thought Nicole.

She couldn't hear them speaking, couldn't even hear their voices. Granted, she wasn't sure if she _wanted_ to, but all the same, it was too odd for her to be surrounded by silence. Frustrated, Nicole bashed a fist against the gelatin-like wall, which sprung back at her again, this time shimmering annoyingly. She looked at her hand and thought, _Of course!_ Why hadn't she thought of it before? She had the longest natural fingernails of anyone she knew, so it should be only too easy for her to just go... Pop! Gearing up for a spear-finger attack, just as she had learned in tae kwon do, she let out a loud cry and jabbed her hand forward with all her might. She might as well have been jabbing a brick wall for all the good it did her. Her fingernails did sink in the jelly-ish stuff, but then they bounced right off.

_Okay, that was one of my loudest war cries ever,_ she thought. _Why didn't they react? People can always hear me yelling a mile away!_

Now only a few people were looking at her, but their expressions made it seem like they were looking at something that was behind her. What was wrong with them? It wasn't like they could see through her... Could they? Keith was standing there with his hands in his pockets and a sort of contemplative frown on his face. A few members of the Japanese Culture club were standing around too. A couple of them were crying. What was wrong? Nicole banged on the surface of the bubble again, trying to get their attention, but her fists bounced off. Then she got a look at Ashley.

Ashley was standing there, staring at... Nicole's feet? Nicole looked down and all she saw was that she was up to her knees in thick mud. Oh well, she hated those pants anyway and after a stunt like this she was pretty much guaranteed to be expelled, so the dress code no longer mattered to her. But she turned her attention away from her pants and back to her best friend's face. Ashley was still staring at the mudhole where Nicole had been standing. What kind of an explosion was that? It just... blew her away. The almost-brunette girl's brown eyes were wide and her face was pale. She looked like she was probably in shock. Nicole couldn't blame her, what with the giant water ball and the explosion...

_Wait... _Nicole thought suddenly, a revelation dawning on her. _The explosion..._

"Ashley!" she screamed urgently, pounding on the bubble's bouncy surface with ineffectual but frantic fists. "Ashley, what's wrong? Can't you..."

_No..._

Nobody could see her anymore! That was why they weren't responding to her and why the few who remained seemed to be looking straight through her. They were... Tears stung Nicole's eyes, but she forced them to stay back. Gritting her teeth, she put her shoulder down and rammed as hard as she could against the bubble. Her left leg was still sunk in the mud, so other than her knee popping loudly, nothing happened. She pulled it up with a sickening _squelch_-y noise and popped her knee back into place, leaning down to give it another go. With a cry of pure desperation and rage, she launched herself at the bubble's glistening surface.

The bubble vibrated as it laughed silently at her, knocking her to the muddy ground.

"DAMN IT ASHLEY, CAN'T YOU HEAR ME?" she roared desperately. "KEITH! RACHAEL! HANNAH! ELLEN! LOOK _AT_ ME, NOT THROUGH ME! I'M STANDING RIGHT HERE! GET ME OUT OF THIS BUBBLE, DAMMIT!"

There were mud flecks on the fronts of her glasses lenses, spattered on so thickly that she could hardly see her friends' faces anymore. She could see the outlines of other people approaching, though. One of them she recognized as the head of the computer department. He was talking to her friends from the Japanese Culture club. Another was the dean of students, talking to Keith - both of them had such serious expressions on their faces... The president of the school was approaching Ashley slowly. She put her arm around Ashley's shoulders and tried to get her to turn away.

"THAT'S IT, ASHLEY! YOU KNOW I'M HERE!" yelled Nicole. "TELL THEM I'M HERE! TELL THEM!"

The computer teacher was herding the Japanese Culture club's remnants back to join the rest of the students in the fire-drill areas. Keith was following the dean of students in the same direction, his hands still deep in his pockets. He looked back and Nicole tried her best to catch his eye. She had no luck, but she thought she had one last hope. Ashley was quietly refusing to leave the spot she seemed rooted to. Her brown eyes would not make tears - she was just too shocked to cry. Swallowing hard, she continued to stare at the place where Nicole had been, shaking her head at the president of the school. Ms. Kirkpatrick said something firmly and placed one hand on Ashley's left shoulder. With her lower lip trembling, Ashley finally turned her body away, continuing to stare at the mud hole.

"Come on," Ms. Kirkpatrick urged gently but firmly.

Ashley took one long last look at the last place she had seen her best friend ---

"ASHLEY! NO! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!" screamed Nicole, her voice cracking and sounding strangled. "DON'T LET THEM BREAK US APART! YOU'RE MY BEST FRIEND!"

--- finally turned her head away, breaking her gaze at last.

"ASHLEY! COME BACK!" wailed Nicole, not caring if she sounded like a child. "DON'T GO! I KNOW YOU KNOW I'M HERE! WE'RE BEST FRIENDS, REMEMBER?"

She watched her best friend allowing herself to be led away, Ashley not permitting herself to take even one backwards look.

"NOOOOOOO!" Nicole's voice tore itself from her throat and she slumped over, defeated.

No longer bothering to force them back, she allowed her tears to set themselves free. However, as soon as they were produced by her tear ducts, the little drops were pulled into the surface of the bubble. It stung and she tried to close her eyes, but it was no use. When her tear ducts were finally sucked dry, they began to bleed. As one drop of blood touched the bubble's surface, Nicole felt somethinng unusual and unwelcome. Water was beginning to well up around her, soaking her clothes even more than they already were. With wide, frightened eyes, she scrambled to her feet.

The cold, clear water was already up to her ankles and it was rising higher and higher with each moment that dragged itself by. Nicole was screaming herself hoarse, knowing full well that nobody could hear her. She kicked at the water uselessly, her abused tear ducts now spurting blood. Her blood seemed to be making the bubble go crazy... It had started vibrating when it stole her tears... The spell had specifically said clear water - maybe the salt of her tears got it started and the blood was just the kick it needed to go off the deep end.

By then, the water was up to her knees and the bubble was filling faster. It was still pulling blood from her tear ducts - Nicole wondered if she would be blind after this experience was over. A horrible question, though, was nagging at the back of her mind: _Would _the experience ever end? Or was she...?

_No... _she thought, her screams silencing. _I can't be dead... I just can't!_

Her dress-code khaki pants clung to her legs uncomfortably, restrictively, as the water rose up over her hips. The bottom of her shirt was already soaked and her cape was floating up around her. She flailed her arms wildly, uselessly, as the water touched the bottoms of her breasts. Frantic, she was trying to push the water away, obviously to no avail. The water kept rising and soon it was at the tops of her shoulders. Nicole was screaming again now, dancing about on her toes in an attempt to keep her head above the still-rising water line. Finally, she felt the bubble lift off the ground, sending her sprawling as her feet struggled for traction on the curved surface. She managed to catch a last breath before the water closed over her head, filling the bubble completely.

Nicole wasn't going to give up. She was going to fight to the very end! If there was some way she could punch, kick, bite, poke, or claw her way out of that bubble, she was going to find it. And if there wasn't... A chill trailed up her spine and she pulled one flap of her cape away from her face. There was no room for thinking like that - there just absolutely wasn't! She was _going _to get out of this mess and she was _going _to put everything right again. First and foremost, she was going to burn that horrid book, the one that had started all the trouble in the first place. A quiet voice nagged at the back of her mind in the silence of the water.

_Did the book make you perform that spell? _it asked slyly.

Nicole told her inner voices to shut up, but she could hear them laughing at her. However, the brain elves took a back seat to a more pressing need: She was rapidly growing lightheaded and she couldn't see. Thankfully, one of the little devils poked her brain with a q-tip and she opened her eyes. The water was just like air - she could see through it perfectly and it didn't sting at all. In fact, it was quite soothing to her dried-up, bleeding tear ducts. That thought was quickly pushed away as Nicole began to thrash, fighting with everything she had to get herself out of that bubble. She was drowning - she could feel it.

_No! I can't give up now! I have to get out of here! _she thought, screaming inside her head. _I have so much to live for!_

Finally, her lungs clenched and she breathed in reflexively. Nicole wanted to scream as water rushed up her nose and down her throat. It burned so painfully going down. She tried to cough it up, but wound up gasping and drawing in more water instead. Yes, she was drowning, her pain-hazed mind thought lethargically. It wouldn't be too long now... She wondered blearily, wasn't she supposed to see her life flashing before her? Her lungs clenched again in an attempt to expel the water, but it was useless. Releasing one last tear of blood, her hazel eyes fell closed and her mind went blank.

However, Nicole Barrington was not dead - far from it. She was actually in a kind of suspended animation, cryogenically frozen in the center of her bubble prison. The bubble started to spin on an invisible axis, like a globe being spun by a child at play. Then it started a motion like a gyroscope, around and around this way and that, as if following the path of a single strand of yarn wound into a ball. Nicole stayed frozen, motionless in the center as the clear surface started to turn different colors. First it became a lovely aqua blue-green, then it turned the color of the water in the Caribbean. A few turns later and it was a pinkish-purple color, with pink being the dominant hue.

Back on the school's campus, the odd combination of day and night had turned back into the dreary grey day with the usual clouds in the sky. The only difference was that the campus sported a brand new gooshy mud hole in the very center of the courtyard. The bubble's surroundings had changed quite a bit. Forming what looked like a hamster tube around it was a red metal tunnel. It was for the most part dark in the tunnel, but the red walls seemed to produce a sort of low light of their own. Then the tube started to slant down, like a slide. The bubble, still spinning away, rolled down the slide with Nicole still frozen and cushioned by the water inside the bubble. Occasionally, when the bubble came to an abrupt change in direction, her hair fluttered a bit in the water, eerily reminiscient of the scenes of dead people in "Titanic".

Still skittering down the slide, the bubble began to vibrate and shimmer all over. It was now producing its own brilliant lavender light. Nicole herself was glowing silver all over - her skin, her hair, and her clothes looked like they were made of liquid metal and glowed softly in comparison to the lavender light produced by the bubble. The metallic substance hardened quickly, forming a sort of protective casing around Nicole. However, it sealed in some of the water that was keeping her frozen and keeping her alive. Nicole had maybe an inch of water between her and the outer casing and it had turned into the same gelatinous substance that the bubble itself was made of, cushioning her against the metal.

Finally, the bubble came to a stop in one certain place, right in front of a hole just big enough for that particular bubble to fit into perfectly. Shaking violently and glowing brighter than ever, it started to spin faster and faster, hard enough to bounce Nicole around inside of it. Had she been conscious, she would have been thankful for the gel cushioning her and the metal casing protecting her. No, actually, if she had been conscious she would have still been thinking about how she wanted to get the hell out of there, sooner rather than later. But at that moment, she wasn't wanting or thinking anything - her mind was as frozen as her body was. Of course, for her mind to be frozen like that was nothing new...

The bubble came to a sudden stop, making Nicole go _ping_ing around inside of it like a human pinball, just as fast and just as hard. But she felt nothing due to being frozen and would suffer no ill effects due to the gel and the casing - she was so serene at that moment, floating in the nothingness of time and space. The bubble rolled forward gently, rocking Nicole like a child with the motion. It was as if it were contemplating the hole in front of it. Then it did another forward roll and fitted itself into the hole snugly, settling Nicole in its center as she had been at first.

Then the Bubble exploded.

Nicole, still frozen and completely unconscious, was flung bodily down a narrow corridor of time with an open door at its far end. A powerful wind was pulling her towards that door and all she could do in her condition was free fall through time and space and let whatever gods there might be watch over her. The metal casing began to crack and fall away, getting lost forever in the vaccuum of time and space. Only left was the gel coating and the little bit of freezing water sealed in around her nose and mouth. The gel began to thin out a little bit at a time, starting with her feet and working its way up her curled-up legs and up her back. At the end of the time corridor, the door was getting closer - she was almost there. The gel had been eaten away by time except for that seal over her nose and mouth and thin bars of it keeping her eyes shut.

As soon as her hand was pulled by the wind across the threshold of that brilliant white door, the seal over her nose and mouth was broken and her eyes flew open. The moment her eyes opened, everything stopped. Then she dropped through the door and fell like a stone. She plummeted to the earth - her first conscious thought was "Oh my God, I'm going to die." But what seemed to be a convenient wind caught hold of her, holding her like a lover. Slowly, gently, it lowered her to the sweet-smelling earth of a forest floor, still curled up in a fetal position.

She smiled as she slipped into a dreamless sleep and the night wove a blanket of stars and mist around her.

The next morning

Nicole Barrington, age 18, woke up cold and stiff in the joints.

_What the hell happened last night? _she wondered. _I know I haven't been drinking... I never do that. And I don't smoke either, so what in the freaking hell is going on?_

She opened her bleary eyes and realized that she had slept in her glasses. Wondering why she couldn't see out of them, she took them off and examined the lenses. There she saw the remnants of mud spatters on the frames and, more disturbingly, the lenses were encrusted with dried blood. She looked down and saw that she was still in her school clothes, her shoes and socks, and her cape. Well, at least she had her nice warm black Polarfleece cape. She spat on her glasses and wiped them on her shirt, not particularly caring about getting mud or blood on it. The dress code could go to hell and back for all she cared, she thought. Then she looked down at her khakis and was shocked - they were stiff up to the knees with dried mud and her shoes and socks were encrusted as well.

_So it was real_, she thought numbly. _It was all real... I drowned. I have to be dead... Where am I?_

Nicole looked around at her new environment with wide, deadened eyes, taking it all in. There was bamboo growing around her, along with trees that looked like they belonged in the art from Princess Mononoke. She was lying on bare, though somewhat soft earth. Cracking her neck and knuckles loudly, she sat up and started trying to chip the mud off her pants. That was her way - when in doubt, pick at something. She remembered that time when she and Ashley had the sunburns of their lives. Their skin had peeled off like bark off a birch tree... Then she laughed and shook her head.

_Please stop picking your skin! It's starting to make me ill!_ Ashley's aunt had said after observing the two girls picking at each other's backs and shoulders like monkeys.

Forgetting about her pants entirely while focusing on the memory, Nicole dragged her mind back to the present moment and shook her head. This wasn't the time to be thinking about skin-picking or monkeys - it was time to be serious and analyze the situation. Well, she certainly wasn't in Kansas anymore. Or Georgia or wherever the hell she was from. Right now it didn't matter where she had come from - it mattered where she was going and how she was going to get there. She pushed herself uneasily to her feet and leaned against a tree for several minutes before regaining her balance.

"Fuck," she said under her breath. "It's like I've forgotten how to walk or something."

Shaking the dirt and leaves off her cape, she shook her head, stuffed her hands in her pockets, picked a direction, and randomly started walking. Bamboo, huh? Well that meant she was either somewhere in the Orient or in somebody's overgrown back yard or in somebody's overgrown back yard somewhere in the Orient. It wasn't like there were signs out in the middle of the woods that said "You are here, now go this way." Nicole shook her head at her own stupidity - she couldn't stand idiots and she was certainly acting like one now. She decided to walk until she found something that looked like it meant people. So she kept going in her current direction.

1 hour later

"WAH! I'm tired!" Nicole whined at nobody in particular - it wasn't like anyone could hear her anyway. "When am I gonna find some _people_?"

It was quite ironic, that it was - normally Nicole wanted to avoid everyone but her friends at all costs, at least in the afternoons after school. Shaking that useless and irrelevant thought away, she turned left and set to walking in that direction until whimsy struck her to turn somewhere else. Whimsy - that was a funny word, she thought. It was like how there were pretty words like "tranquility" and "serenity" and then there were ugly words like "cracker". Crackers... She wondered how everybody was doing after their experience yesterday. Vaguely, she wondered if an event like that would make the newspapers. Probably not, she reasoned, as no one had been able to get a picture of the water ball. Maybe the news people would have to make a story of it if enough people reported it...

Then Nicole walked into a tree.

"FUCK!" she hollered, rousting the birds from the trees.

She grumbled to herself and turned to the right this time, away from the offending tree, which she had kicked just for good measure. Cursing under her breath, she kept walking, kicking sticks once in a while for variety, occasionally picking one up and hitting things with it. She found a really nice fallen bamboo stick that made a perfect imaginary Firebolt and soon she was zooming around the forest making _whoosh_-y noises and playing Quidditch by herself. Who ever said an overactive imagination was a bad thing? She was about to catch the Snitch when, shock of shocks, she ran headlong into another tree and knocked herself out cold.

"Is someone there?" called male voice Nicole had never heard before but couldn't hear anyway.

The young man had heard Nicole's crash, heard the bamboo crack against the tree, and heard Nicole land in a heap on the forest floor, which was thick with rotting leaves and dried-up fallen bamboo sticks. He pushed his way through a particularly stubborn bamboo patch and carefully kicked a thorny vine out of the way. Tilting his head quizzically as he looked around, he wondered if he had just imagined the whole thing. His mind pulled him back to the present moment and he remembered he was supposed to be hunting. There was just no meat to be found in his village. A deer or even a rabbit would make his mother and sisters happy. But something told him to look over his right shoulder just as he was turning to move on.

There was a girl lying on the forest floor, with a stick of cracked bamboo beside her! She was dressed in strange clothes and as he got a closer look, he noticed that she had a long mane of wavy auburn hair fanning out around her. Was she one of the _gaijin_, the foreigners he had heard so much about? She had to be... Then again, if she weren't dressed so strangely, one might think she was a relative of Himura Battousai, what with the similarities in their hair. The young man shivered at the thought of Battousai, but thought, _At least he's on our side_.

Looking around, the young man determined that there were no other people with this girl. Then another question popped up, somewhat belatedly, in his mind. Why was she lying on the forest floor not moving? Was she...? No, he reasoned, there was color in her cheeks, so she had to be alive. Taking in the cracked bamboo stick and the large wart-like lump on her forehead, he deduced brilliantly that she had run into the tree. He shook his head and stepped forward to further investigate the situation. All right, number one, there was a _gaijin_ girl alone in the forest. Number two, she was dressed in such strange clothes that he couldn't tell what country she might be from. Number three, she couldn't possibly have been very intelligent if she was running around alone in the woods playing with sticks.

He took a deep breath, slung his bow across his back, and sidled over to the girl's prone, unmoving form. The aforementioned large wart-like lump was going down steadily and leaving a large red mark behind. Yes, she would have that bruise for quite a long while. The young man knelt beside the girl and poked her shoulder. She didn't move. Carefully, he eased one arm under her shoulders, trying to help her sit up. Something slimy brushed against his hand and he drew it back at once, removing a snail from her hair. He pulled a disgusted face and dropped the golf-ball-sized gastropod behind a nearby rock, leaving it to continue on its way as he wiped his hand on his _hakama_.

With the snail slime out of the way, he slid his other arm under the girl's knees and, as gently as he could, hefted the small girl up closer to him. It was with some difficulty that he got to his feet, narrowly missing walking into the same tree that had caused the problem in the first place. She was quite petite, but balancing out 108 pounds of dead weight wasn't exactly a walk in the park. But eventually, he got her settled rather comfortably in his arms. The only problem left was her black cape - it just made her sort of difficult to hold. He shifted it just a bit and adjusted his arm around her shoulders. Her head lolled to the side, resting in the curve of his own shoulder. The young man smiled and turned around to head back to his village.

Then a brick hit him in the head. Or that was what it felt like as realization dawned painfully upon him that he still had no meat to bring home to his family. He would just have to get the girl to a safe place and get his hunting done, then find her and take her back home with him. Shifting her weight again, he turned back down his hunting path and started for a cave attached to a clearing he had spent many nights in. It was a good safe place and there was a fresh water spring there in the cave. He knew he had firewood and a deerskin blanket there, so that was where he went, thinking all the while about what might happen when the girl woke up.

He had another shocking revelation and almost dropped her - what in the hell did he think he was he going to do when she woke up? She was a _gaijin_, so he could almost count on her speaking very little Japanese or none at all... How was he going to communicate with her? She would be waking up to find herself alone with a strange man and no matter where one came from, that typically didn't mean anything good. How was he supposed to tell her that no one had taken advantage of her or anything like that? Trying to slow his breathing down and relax, he pushed his questions to the back of his mind and concentrated on getting the girl to where she would be safe.

It wasn't too terribly long before he was laying her down on the soft leaf bed that he had carefully piled up in the back of the cave, a little ways away from the spring. He slipped his arms out from under her knees and shoulders gently and pulled the deerskin blanket up to cover her. Her clothes, except for her cape, were probably beyond salvaging, but it simply wouldn't be proper for him to undress her. Sure, had her life been in immediate danger, propriety would have certainly taken a back seat to saving her, but it wasn't, so propriety ruled. He picked a leaf out of her hair and smoothed the mass of auburn waves back off her face, then got up, re-strung his bow, and walked determinedly out of the cave.

Several hours later

The young man had gotten back to the cave some time ago and he had been quite busy since his arrival. He had cleaned and butchered the deer, then respectfully burned what was left of the carcass. The meat had been set to smoke over a fire at the mouth of the cave and the hide had been stretched on the wall to dry. It would make a nice deer leather blanket once he could work with it... But in the midst of all of this, Nicole had gone from being totally unconscious to being very deeply asleep. Now, she was fully rested and started to shift on the leaf bed, making it produce soft whispering noises with her motions.

"Oh, she's waking up," the young man said to himself, pushing himself off the ground where he had been sitting and watching the meat smoke. "May as well get this over with..."

With a long-suffering sigh, he approached the leaf bed cautiously. The girl was still mostly asleep, shifting again every once in a while and talking in her sleep. Most of the sounds she made were so garbled that he couldn't tell if they were actually words, but then the communication issue came up again. Sighing once more, the young man carefully reached out one strong, callused hand to the girl's blanket-, cape-, and shirt-covered shoulder. Instead of shaking her, he moved his hand back and forth gently, stroking her shoulder and easing her back to reality. The girl's eyes fluttered and finally opened, looking up at him sleepily. The first thing she saw was a pair of eyes the color of topaz.

"_Daijoubu ka?_" asked a concerned male voice.

She knew what it meant and automatically responded "_Hai_... I think so..."

Surprised that she knew a little Japanese, the young man tried again.

"_Onamae wa nan desu ka?_" he asked, his voice soft and gentle.

"Nicole," she answered, her voice hoarse from all the screaming she had done. "Nicole Barrington."

"_Nikooru-san ne_?" the man with the topaz eyes asked. He wasn't even going to attempt pronouncing her surname.

"_Hai_!" Nicole croaked happily. Then her face turned serious. "_Eigo ga dekimasu ka?_"

_So she speaks English_, the young man thought, cursing inwardly at all the good that little tidbit of information would do him - none, since he spoke nothing but Japanese.

"_Iie_," he said apologetically, shaking his head. "_Nihongo ga dekimasu ka?_"

Nicole wasn't sure of the right way to say "A little," and froze.

"Erm... _Chibi!_" she squeaked awkwardly, making a hand gesture for little. "_Chibi chibi!_"

The young man's eye twitched. So the only word for "little" she knew was _chibi_...

"_Hasegawa Miku desu_," he said, pointing at himself.

_"Miku-oniichan ne?_" Nicole asked with wide eyes.

This girl certainly was a trusting one, Miku thought... All he had done was look into her eyes and already she was calling him "brother".

"_Hai, hai, Nikooru-chan,_" he replied. "_Whatever you want._"

(Author's note: If someone is speaking Japanese, the words will be italicized and in quotation marks. If they're speaking Japanese and I write it in English, don't flame. I'm not fluent in Japanese.)

"_Arigato gozaimasu_..." whispered Nicole, reaching for Miku's hand. "_Miku-oniichan_!"

She smiled brilliantly at him and tried to sit up, bashing her head yet again on the stone wall of the cave. For a change, she didn't knock herself out. Miku slid one hand between her head and the wall of the cave and wrapped the other one around her shoulders, helping her sit up. Shaking his head and smiling at her, he removed his arm from her shoulders and she promptly fell over again. A frown furrowed Miku's brow and he looked Nicole over carefully as he helped her to sit up again, this time keeping his arm behind her shoulders for her to lean on. She was holding her hands up in front of her and they were shaking badly. He thought of how hoarse her voice had sounded and mentally smacked himself. She needed water, of course! Gently, he laid her back down.

"_Matte, ne_?" he said, telling her to wait there on the leaf bed for him. "_I'll be right back._"

He got up and went to get the water bucket, finding it empty. He swore under his breath and headed for the spring to re-fill it. The sound of water splashing softly into the bucket was soothing and very soon, the bucket was almost overflowing because he had been spacing out. He jumped a little as cold water on his hand jolted him back to reality and the present moment. Shaking his head at himself, he busied himself with bringing the water bucket over to Nicole, forgetting the dipper and going back to get it. When he got back, he saw Nicole smiling at him contentedly, as though she would like nothing better than to just stay in that cave with him.

"_Water?_" he asked, gesturing to the bucket and using the dipper to point.

"_Hai, onegai,_" replied Nicole, trying to sit up once more and once again falling and almost hitting her head on the stone wall behind her. "_Tasukete, ne?_"

She reached up to him like a child and a smile curved his lips as he knelt beside her and eased his arm once more under her shoulders, helping her sit up. He dipped the water dipper into the bucket and withdrew it slowly, full to the brim. Carefully, trying not to drip cold water on her, he raised the dipper to Nicole's lips. She closed her eyes and drank slowly, enjoying the feel of cold, clear water running down her throat, water that was not trying to choke her to death. Her throat was raw and the water was quite soothing. Finally, she stopped sipping long enough to breathe.

"_Arigato gozaimasu, Miku-oniichan_," she said softly, her voice not so much a croak as it was a hoarse whisper.

"_Dou itashimashite_," Miku replied, withdrawing the dipper as soon as she let him know she was finished.

For a while, they just sat there, him with his arm around her shoulders, supporting her, and her leaning gratefully into his gentle hold. When she felt like she could move, Nicole raised her hand to her eye level again and her face fell with disappointment when she saw that it was shaking just as violently as it had been before. Tilting his head and frowning in concern, Miku took her hand in his own free one and guided it back to her side. He was wondering if she was still dehydrated when... **Grrrrumble!** Nicole's stomach growled loudly and both she and Miku immediately developed identical "twitchy marks" on their foreheads.

Nicole cringed and grinned at Miku in embarrassment. He just looked at her for a while, then he laughed out loud and gave her hand a squeeze when he had quieted down. So she was hungry, he thought, shaking his head and chuckling at her red-faced expression. Well, there wasn't much he could offer her, but smoked venison was better than nothing. He smiled at her, laid her down again and gently touched her stomach as he pointed at the smoking meat. She giggled and squirmed at his touch, as though he had tried to tickle her. Miku laughed again and got up to get her some food.

Rolling on her side, Nicole propped her head on her hand and watched him curiously. Miku cut a few thick strips of meat from one of the larger pieces and wrapped them around a stalk of green bamboo. The bamboo stalk, with meat wrapped around it, now looked like a funny sort of swizzle stick. He stuck the stalk right over the fire. Nicole wasn't quite sure what the official term for that kind of cooking was, but it sure smelled good! She could hear the fat dropping off the meat and making popping sounds in the fire. It made her think of when she was in Girl Scouts, making beef and tomato kebabs at Amicalola Falls, up in North Georgia.

_Will I ever be able to go back there again?_ she thought sadly. _I miss my friends... What about Ashley? This is going to absolutely kill her! And everybody else back home... They probably all think I'm dead._

Salty, salty tears stung Nicole's abused tear ducts painfully, so she tried to force them back. She thought of being happy, of the nights she and Ashley had stayed up until the early hours of the morning watching Kenshin. The tears came faster and Nicole bit her lip to keep herself quiet. Little crystalline droplets fell - _ptt, ptt_ - onto the leaves that made up the bed on which she was lying. She bowed her head, trying to keep Miku from being able to tell that she was crying. Of course, just then, Miku slid the strips of venison onto a small bamboo mat that was about the size of a plate and got up from his place by the fire.

"_Nikooru-chan_?" he asked, making her name into a question as he knelt beside her again.

"I want to go home!" Nicole burst out, breaking down into sobs and crying into her cape.

"_Nani? Nihongo kudasai,"_ Miku said softly, looking at her through his almost-black bangs.

His topaz eyes glittered with concern.

"I want to go home!" Nicole begged again, not knowing the Japanese phrase for it and not particularly caring. "I miss my friends! I want my mom!"

Miku's brow furrowed in both concern and frustration. He had no way of knowing what was bothering her or what she wanted. Tilting his head at her, he offered her a piece of meat, but she shook her head 'no'. He knew she was hungry, so why was she refusing food? Still frustrated, he asked her again, "_Nani? Nihongo kudasai, ne?" _But Nicole shook her head and continued to sob miserably. Setting the bamboo plate-mat aside, Miku gathered her into his arms like he did for his little sisters when they were upset. Nicole's arms found their way around his neck and she hid her face in his _gi_ as she continued to cry as if her heart was broken.

"_Daijoubu, Nikooru-chan_," the topaz-eyed man said softly, holding the girl tightly in his arms. "_Mou nakanaide, ne?_"

But she continued to cry until she had no more tears.


	3. Cold Kin

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 2

"Cold Kin"

_Why is she crying?_ Miku thought desperately. _What upset her!? How am I supposed to know!?_

He rocked Nicole gently in his arms as he so often did for his sisters when they were crying and unable to sleep due to hunger. His own stomach growled insistently but it would just have to be patient. He had more important things to think about than his own wants. Nicole was sobbing into his _gi_ so forcefully that he thought she might make herself sick. Almost in tears of frustration himself, Miku pulled Nicole up and held her shoulders so that he could look her in the eyes. His grip was strong and though she tried to hide her face again, he refused to yield.

_"Yamero_," he said firmly, using the stronger, more masculine command as he squeezed Nicole's shoulders. "_Ima, oshiete. Doushite namida?_"

Nicole looked up at her _onii-chan_ with indescribable pain in her eyes. How could she tell him that she wanted to go home, that everyone she knew thought she was dead? What was she supposed to do to let him know something wasn't right, that she shouldn't even be there? Her whole body shuddered and tears still streamed unchecked down her face, dripping off her cheeks and spattering on her cape. Miku wanted to wipe those tears away, but he couldn't let go of her to free his hand or she would fall again. Trying to reach for him, Nicole raised one shaking hand as best she could. She wanted to lie down, go to sleep, and wake up in her own bed to find that this had all been a bad dream.

"_Nemuritai_," she said softly, her voice wavering.

"_Iie Nikooru-chan,_" countered Miku. "_Doushite namida?_"

"My best friend, my parents, everybody I know and love thinks I'm dead!" Nicole burst out, not caring if he didn't understand but at the same time trying to make him. "I want to go home! HOME!"

She pulled herself free of his grip and fell over, swearing. Fighting her own weakness, she pushed herself back up and began to gesture wildly. Trying to get him to understand, she made an upside-down V over her head with her hands, screaming "Home!" as though she were trying to speak to someone very deaf. Miku shook his head, not understanding at all, and reached out to try to control her. All this movement just wasn't good for her! Nicole slapped his hands away and went on gesturing. Finally, she was hoarse again and at her wit's end.

"Mama," she croaked dejectedly. "Do you understand that? Mama..."

"_Okaa-san?_" Miku asked carefully, hoping he had heard her correctly. "_Okaa-san to Otou-chan, ne_?"

"_Hai!_" cried Nicole, nodding vigorously. "I want my _okaa-san _and my _otou-chan_!"

"_Doko_?" asked Miku, his voice still cautious.

"America," Nicole replied sullenly "_Atashi amerikaijin_."

"_How did you get here?_" queried Miku. "_What happened?_"

Nicole didn't know quite what he was saying, but she got the general message.

"_Shirimasen_," she said dully. "_Mahou?_"

Magic?

Miku was taken aback and went over this very carefully in his mind. Did she mean to tell him that she knew magic or something like that? His manner towards her as a friendly older brother dropped and was replaced with deep suspicion and a feeling of unease. Nicole watched his face change and panicked, wondering what had just happened to make his attitude change all of a sudden. Then she remembered - the people of Japan were very supersticious. If it turned out that he thought she was some kind of demon, who knew what he might do? She thought of the first manga of Ayashi no Ceres and nearly got sick with fear. He could kill her without much effort if he decided she was evil... When she looked up, he was indeed reaching for a knife.

"_Miku-oniichan! Yamete!_" she begged, reaching out for his hand. To her surprise, he let her take hold of it. "_Atashi haguru! Haguru!"_

She knew her Japanese wasn't very good, but if it could save her life, she didn't care.

"_Hontou?_" Miku asked, his voice critical. "_How can I be sure of that?_"

"_Onegai! Maniukeru!_" pleaded Nicole, gripping Miku's hand. "_Onegai!_"

Miku looked at Nicole's flushed face, at the tears in her eyes, the red blotches on her skin, the tears drying on her cheeks, and sighed. He simply couldn't do it - he didn't have it in him. Angel, demon, _gaijin_, whatever she was, he didn't have the heart to hurt her. He put the knife down and leaned towards Nicole, who cringed and shied away from him like a kicked dog, whimpering in much the same way. Though she tried to push him away, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to his chest and feeling her body shaking against his own. She just seemed so small and helpless... If she was lost, he would help her get home, no matter what he had to do.

"_Daijoubu, Nikooru-chan,_" he whispered, rocking her as he did for his sisters. "_Daijoubu..._"

Nicole relaxed and allowed Miku to lay her back down on the leaf bed. She was fully awake, but something in her was calling her to sleep. Something else inside her told her that wasn't a good sign. Miku also noticed that something was amiss, noting Nicole's suddenly-pale complexion. She was breathing erratically and her eyes were fluttering wildly, her fists clenched so tight that her knuckles were turning white. Was she having some kind of fit? No, he told himself. He had seen fits before and this was nothing like it. That could only mean she was feeling faint.

"_Nikooru-chan, stay with me!_" he whispered, taking her hand and squeezing it. "_You can't pass out now - you might not wake up!"_

It was too late - Nicole had already slipped into unconsciousness again. Miku was beside himself in panic, hoping against hope that she would open her eyes. Then he remembered the long-forgotten meat on the bamboo mat/plate to his right - Nicole had to be starving! That's what it was. And there was no way she could eat in the condition she was in... She was just too weak to chew. Miku sighed - he knew what he had to do when she woke up and he knew she wasn't going to like it. For the present, he contented himself with holding her hand.

Nicole, however, was having the wildest and most wonderful dream she had ever had in her life. There was a young woman with long, dark green hair standing at the end of a long corridor. The woman was tall and held a staff that looked like a giant key. In her other gloved hand, she held a pretty chalice. Nicole's eyes were glued to that chalice and she was fighting the winds tooth and nail to get over to the young woman, who tilted her head and waited for her. Finally, the winds stopped and Nicole was flung head over heels by her own momentum, landing in a sprawl in front of the green-haired Lady.

"You look like you could use a drink," the Lady said, her deep yet feminine voice ringing softly with amusement. "Here..."

She held the chalice out to Nicole, who drank gratefully.

When Nicole didn't stir after about ten minutes, Miku decided that it was time for him to do something about it. He reached for the water bucket and pulled it over to him. There was a rag near the bucket, so he dipped the rag in the cold water and squeezed it out. Gently, he eased Nicole into his arms, supporting her on his left arm while he wiped her face carefully with the cold cloth. Nicole twitched, but didn't awaken right away. Miku rolled his eyes and stuck the rag back in the bucket - this time he would wake her up for sure. Nicole was about to thank the green-haired Lady. At that moment, Miku dropped the soaking cloth on her head, where it landed with a wet _splat_ and splattered cold water all over her.

"Yeeow!" squalled Nicole, sitting bolt upright and nearly nailing Miku in the jaw with the top of her head. "What the hell was that for!?"

"_Well you wouldn't wake up!_" retorted Miku.

"Well next time, why don't you just..." Nicole cut off as realization dawned on her. "You understood me!"

"_Of course I did!_" Miku said exasperatedly. "_Wait... How did I do that!?_"

Standing at the Gates of Time, watching over the proceedings, the green-haired Lady looked down and laughed.

Nicole, still pale and shaking a little, fell back on the leaf bed, making it rustle, and stared up at Miku, who stared right back in equal bafflement. Everything was just getting so confusing. Neither of them knew what to do at the moment and he was once again starting to think that Nicole had evil magic with her. Miku shook his head and swiped a hand across his forehead - he was sweating from all the stress and that fire was making everything so damn... Fire?

"_Chikusho!_" he yelped, jumping up to put out the roaring fire that was trying to leap right out of its pit and catch the meat on fire.

A few of the lower-hanging pieces were already in flames. Miku swore foully and started moving the meat racks away, trying not to catch his _hakama_ on fire. Nicole was sitting up unsteadily, watching Miku and shaking her head. He reminded her of one of her friends back home - which brought fresh tears to her eyes. She sat there hiccuping and scrubbing at her eyes with her cape, listening to Miku cursing loudly as he, of course, caught his hakama on fire. Wait... That wasn't good! Nicole pushed herself shakily to her feet and grabbed the water bucket. Using the cave wall to lean against, she inched quickly in Miku's direction. He turned around trying to put the flames out when...

"Payback's a bitch," quipped Nicole, calmly drenching him.

Miku gave her a sour look and a grumbled "_arigatou_" as he started trying to squeeze the water out of his clothes. Nicole was once again in tears and his heart softened as he looked at her. For some reason, he just couldn't stay miffed at her - apparently that was just the way it was. He shook his head, shaking water from his hair like a dog would, then stepped over to the leaf bed and sat down. Nicole was coughing from the smoke and her eyes were so puffy and red that it was hard to tell what color they were originally.

"_Tell me what's wrong,_" he said gently, tilting Nicole's chin up so that he could look her in the eyes.

"I miss my friends," Nicole replied tearfully. "Everybody I know probably thinks I'm dead or something..."

And with that, she launched into an explanation of how she had gotten stuck in pre-Meiji Japan. She told him everything she knew, from the disaster in the library to the big leather book to the water spell. Then her throat sort of got stuck as she tried to tell him how the bubble had sucked the water from the ground and the sky. Miku listened intently with a frown on his face - this definitely sounded like dark magic to him. But Nicole assured him that she wasn't trying to do anything wrong; she didn't know that the spell would turn out as it did.

"And then I watched my best friend walk away..." she said softly, her voice trailing off as she dissolved into sobs again.

Miku could hear the pain in Nicole's voice as she reminisced tearfully about good times with her best friend, about how they would stay up 'til all hours of the night. He listened to her carrying on about the boy she liked back home, the one who scored the last goal in the soccer game to take State. Nicole curled into a ball, making herself as small as she possibly could, and lay down on the leaf bed. Again she got the feeling that she wanted to sleep and not wake up until she was back home.

"_Maa, maa,_" whispered Miku, holding Nicole's hand. "_I'll help you_."

Nicole sniffled and wiped her nose on her hand, then wiped her hand on her pants. The motion drew Miku's attention to her mouth and he remembered what he had to do to get her to eat. He could at least offer to let her try first... So he picked up a strip of the now-cold venison and offered it to her. Nicole took it and tried to bite off the end, but but her jaw just wouldn't clench tight enough to chew it. Miku sighed - he was going to have a hell of a time with this...

"_Like I said, I'll help you_," he said softly. "_Come here._"

He took her left hand in his right and helped Nicole sit up, positioning her so that her shoulders were once again supported by his left arm.

"I don't get what you think you're going to... Oh no, you can't be serious!" Nicole protested, trying to squirm away. "No you don't! Don't even think about it!"

Miku rolled his eyes and bit off the end of the venison strip, holding Nicole tighter against him. She would thank him for this later. He chewed steadily and stopped. Nicole was determinedly glaring daggers at the wall of the cave, her face turned away from him as far as she could get it. Laying the rest of the venison strip back on the bamboo mat/plate, he wiped the grease on his _hakama_ and caught Nicole's chin in a firm but gentle grip. She tried to bite him, but he turned her face up to his and carefully pressed his lips down on hers. Nicole gasped and he took the opportunity to push the venison into her mouth. Her first reaction was to gag, but somehow another sensation overrode it.

Miku fed her as much venison as she could handle and smiled wryly as she lay panting in his arms.

"Don't ever do that again," growled Nicole, swiping one hand across her mouth.

"_You're not strong enough to eat by yourself,_" Miku told her. "_I'll do what I have to do."_

Nicole swore a black oath and Miku tenderly laid her back down - then he got up.

"What are you doing?" asked Nicole.

"_I'm taking you home with me,_" Miku replied, packing the rest of the venison into a bamboo basket and sticking it in his travel bag. "_It's not like I can just leave you here._"

Nicole couldn't argue with that, so she pushed herself up, forcing her wobbly legs to support her weight, and started trying to help him pack. Miku swatted her hands away, muttering about little girls who liked to touch everything, but he smiled at her. He couldn't help smiling at her. When she was cheerful, her cheer was just plain infectious. You just couldn't help smiling when she smiled. He finished packing together the rest of what little he had brought, put his knife back in the waist tie of his _hakama,_ and stood up. Nicole had quietly gone back to sit on the leaf bed when she had been discouraged from helping, so she looked up at him plaintively.

"_You really know how to look pitiful, you know that?_" commented Miku, offering his hand to Nicole, who took it and shakily pulled herself up.

"How far do we have to go?" asked Nicole, ignoring Miku's comment.

"_We'll be going that way_," replied Miku, pointing to the northeast. "_Shouldn't take us more than four hours_."

"Oh wonderful..." Nicole muttered sardonically.

They had spent so much time in the cave earlier that it was very close to nightfall by the time they had gotten halfway there. The evening air was cold and moist, making Nicole pull her cape tighter around her. Miku noticed that she was also walking with a limp, favoring her left leg and wincing whenever she put her weight on it. Nicole knew she had twisted her knee when she was trying to break out of the bubble, but she wasn't going to let him know that. He had done so much for her - she didn't want him going out of his way for her more than was absolutely necessary. Still, she couldn't help yelping when she tripped over a thick fallen bamboo trunk that was laid right across the path and landed on her knees.

"Ow!" she cried, curling up and wrapping her arms around her drawn-up left leg. "It hurts!"

Miku stopped, doubled back, and came to kneel beside her.

"_Do you think you've broken something_?" he asked, his voice clinical - he didn't know what he would do if she had actually broken a bone.

Nicole shook her head 'no'.

"_Let me see it,_" Miku directed. "_Forgive me..._"

Gently, he pulled her hands away from her leg, wiped her tears away, and pushed up her pant leg. Her knee was swollen and purple and for a horrible moment, he thought he saw bone. But there was no blood, so he breathed a sigh of relief and tenderly stroked the swollen area. Nicole flinched a little, but tried her best to keep still. Miku was gently poking the area, trying to feel for anything that might be out of place. Her kneecap was pushed a little to the side - his had done that before and he knew there was only one way to deal with it. Thinking on the spur of the moment, he kissed her quickly to distract her and popped her knee back into place.

"YEEOW SHIT!" hollered Nicole, flustered and in pain. "What the hell did you do that for!?"

"_I was hoping to distract you so it wouldn't hurt as much_," replied Miku, rubbing her knee carefully to try and fix the circulation in the bruise. "_I did ask you to forgive me..._"

"It's okay," Nicole gritted out, clenching her teeth whenever Miku touched a sensitive spot. "Let's just get going..."

"_I'll carry you_," Miku said in a rather bossy voice.

Nicole swatted his hands away and grabbed a nearby standing bamboo tree to pull herself up. She shook her hair back, adjusted her cape, and set off continuing down the path. Miku followed her, waiting for the inevitable crash. Surprisingly, it never came. Nicole was doing perfectly well for herself using a piece of fallen bamboo as a crutch, though she was still wincing painfully every time she had to put weight on her left leg. Miku shook his head, surprised at her determination - he had never met a girl like her before. He walked a little faster and slowed down when he was by her side, just in case she needed to lean on him.

"_If you need me to carry you, just say the word and I will,_" he reminded her gently.

Two hours later

Miku followed a triumphant Nicole out of the woods - she had gone the whole way without having to let him carry her and without leaning on him. He scratched his head, shook his head to get his hair out of his face, and squeezed her shoulder supportively. A sigh of relief escaped his lips - he could see his family's small house from where he stood, which meant that he and Nicole would both soon be safe and warm. Pride filled his heart as he thought of the venison in the bag on his back - he could provide for his family just as well as his father and brothers could.

"_Almost there, Nikooru-chan,_" he assured her. "_That's us right over there._"

He pointed to a very small house on the end of a row of very small houses with shoji panels for windows and doors and no front porches. Sure it was small, but to him, his mother, his sisters, and his grandfather, it was home. He wanted to sprint for home like a child, but maturity kicked in and reminded him that he had Nicole to take care of. Her strength was fading and she needed to be inside where it was warm. Some food wouldn't hurt either. His mother made the best miso soup in all of Edo.

Well, they didn't actually live IN Edo... More like a village just on its outskirts. They hadn't seen much fighting from the Revolution that was going on, but they weren't getting many of the benefits the new government promised either. Dealers were driving the price of rice up into exorbitant amounts of money. It was a whole yen now just for one kilo! Miku shook his head and pulled himself back to the present moment. Nicole was shaking on her feet and was just about to give out. Finally, her knees gave way and she sank to the ground.

"_I told you I would carry you,_" Miku whispered in Nicole's ear as he knelt beside her, earning a growl in response.

He slid one arm under her shoulders and the other arm under her knees, picking her up carefully to avoid aggravating her left knee more than it already was. Shaking from hunger, fatigue, and stress and sniffling because of the cold air, Nicole rested her head on her new-found _onii-chan_'s shoulder. Strong, sure strides carried them both closer to the warmth and safety of home as Miku continued forward, a tad bit shaky himself. It had been a fairly grueling four hours, what with hurrying as fast as they could to get back before it was too late at night. Not too soon, Miku was standing on the front steps shivering as he let Nicole stand on her own just for a moment.

With a shaking hand, he slid the thick shoji aside. He slipped off his sandals at the entrance way and gestured for Nicole to remove her shoes as well. She kicked them off and let them land however gravity willed it, making an odd pile beside the neat row of worn _zori_ sandals. Miku shook his head and straightened them, rolling his eyes at Nicole, who giggled quietly at his serious expression. She would have given him a hug, but remembered how the Japanese always put on a very modest front and hugging was pretty much forbidden.

"_Tadaima!_" called Miku, stepping into the warm light of an oil lamp.

"_'nii-chan! Miku-'niichan!_" squealed two eager, high-pitched voices as a six-year old and and eight-year old pelted into the room wearing sleeping _yukata_s. "_Miku-'niichan's home!!_"

A middle-aged woman followed at a more sedate pace, pulling a _haori_ on over her own sleeping _yukata_.

"_Welcome home, Miku,_" she said quietly, embracing her youngest and now only son. "_You were gone longer than usual... And who is this with you?_"

She smiled warmly at Nicole, who bowed respectfully, trying not to fall over with the sudden shift of body weight.

"_Okaa-san, this is Nikooru... Erm... I can't pronounce her surname,_" Miku said awkwardly, gesturing politely at Nicole as he stumbled over his words - obviously this was the first time he had brought a girl home with him.

"_Youkoso kimi ni wa, Nikooru-san,_" said Hasegawa-san. "_Watashi wa Hasegawa Chizuko._"

"_Hajimemashite, Hasegawa-san,_" replied Nicole, bowing again and feeling rather faint.

"_Mii-chan, how did you meet Nikooru---" _Hasegawa-san began. "_Oh my!_"

Nicole's eyes rolled up and she fainted dead away for the umpteenth time that day. Reacting quickly, Miku tried to catch her before she hit the floor, but she just crumpled and fell in a heap on the tatami. When she hit, she rubbed a nasty friction burn on her nose. Miku pulled her up gently and laid her down on his own futon, which happened to be in the living room since he was tall and _Ojii-san _needed a room to himself anyway. Okon, the eight-year-old, and Omasu, the six-year-old, both slept in the third room of the house. Hasegawa-san raised an eyebrow at her son's behavior but said nothing. However, Miku saw the look and stood up.

"_She's ill, Okaa-san, and quite lost too,_" he said softly, looking down at Nicole. "_She's an American and she doesn't know what she's doing here. I only meant to sleep by the fire to make sure she was safe._"

Hasegawa-san knew her son was a trustworthy young man who would never do anything to shame himself or a woman, whether he was responsible for her or not, so she nodded.

"_Just don't tell your Ojii-chan_," she cautioned, stepping over the end of Miku's futon towards her own bedroom. "_We'll talk to him in the morning. Ima, nemuritai... Oyasumi Mii-chan..."_

Miku bade his mother good night and settled himself beside his futon, watching Nicole's soft, even breathing. He wanted to do lots of things, but first and foremost, he wanted to touch that cascade of auburn waves. Looking around carefully, he made sure that the doors to his mother's bedroom and his grandfather's bedroom were both closed. Breathing an inaudible sigh of relief, he reached out to run his fingers through Nicole's hair. It felt soft, but not the same way his sisters' hair felt - Nicole's hair was thick and wavy and rather tangled, while his sisters' hair felt like straight silk. Nicole's hair felt unique to his hands, but he liked it. She shifted her head and he quickly pulled his hand away, this time snail-less.

"_Oyasumi nasai, Nikooru-chan_," he whispered, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes.

The next morning

"_It's the only thing to do, Chizuko_," said the old man's rasping voice, overriding the younger woman's protests.

"_Demo, ojii-chan, what about Miku?_" asked Chizuko, still not giving up on her case. "_He seems so attached to her. Maybe she would make a good wife for him?_"

The grandfather of the Hasegawa family seemed to puff up, making his wiry old frame seem twice its normal size, and his face turned red.

"_Absolutely not! I forbid it!_" he bellowed, his weak body belying powerful lungs. "_She's a gaijin! Foreigners are not to be trusted, ahou onna!_"

"_Now see here, ojii-**san**,_" snapped Chizuko, putting emphasis on the honorific. "_This is about deciding an innocent girl's fate, not insulting my intelligence!_"

"_Quiet, onna!_" yelled the old man, striking his daughter-in-law across the face and knocking her down. "_You forget your place._"

Hasegawa Chizuko pushed herself back up to a sitting position and bowed her head, accepting her defeat and cursing the old man in her mind.

"_As I am obviously too old to be wandering around that area of town on my own and I certainly can't have you going, it falls on Miku to take her," _the oldest Hasegawa said imperiously, regaining his composure. "_Send the boy in here._"

Fighting back tears, Chizuko bowed respectfully to the old man and gracefully rose to her feet, straightening her _homongi_ kimono. She opened the _shoji_, stepped out, and snapped it shut angrily behind her. Sometimes, though she knew it was not good to hold feelings like that, she hated that awful old man. He treated her (Chizuko) like a servant and was a harsh disciplinarian with Okon and Omasu. Now on top of that, he was going to make his grandson do the unthinkable - she couldn't even think about it.

"_Mii-chan, could you come here please?_" she asked in a soft voice, stepping out into the main room. "_Your ojii-san has something to... Oh!_"

She looked to the left to find her son with his knees drawn up, leaning against the wall and still sound asleep. Nicole was curled up on her side with the blanket wrapped tightly around her. Some time during the night, her hand had sought out Miku's and their fingers had intertwined. Normally Chizuko would have scolded her son for such behavior, but they both looked so sweet and innocent, like children, as they slept peacefully, hand in hand. She wiped a single tear from her eye and stepped out the door to go get some water and use a compress on her face. Hopefully the hit wouldn't bruise and the children, including Miku, wouldn't ask questions.

As she slid the front _shoji_ closed, stepping back into the house and sliding her sandals off, she swallowed hard as she looked at the sleeping pair again. It would just hurt Miku more if she let him get any more attached to Nicole, so sooner was better. She had to tell him, but she couldn't stand to wake Nicole and have her hear it too. It would just be too painful to listen to the girl cry. Taking a deep breath, Chizuko padded over to her son on silent feet, trying her hardest to force back her tears and think only about what had to be done. After all, she had Okon and Omasu to think about - she couldn't just let them go hungry when there was easy money at hand. Not feeling justified at all, she leaned over and put a gentle hand on her son's shoulder.

"_Mii-chan, mezamenasai_," she whispered, still holding onto his shoulder and touching his face with her free hand. "_It's time to wake up..._"

Miku's eyes fluttered open as he made a soft "Huh?" noise and scratched his head. He was still facing Nicole and his eyes trailed down to see their hands, still entwined with each other. A sleepy smile curved his lips - he could definitely get used to waking up like this, even if his back would hate him for it later. He heard a whispering voice and was jolted from his thoughts as his head jerked up and he found himself face-to-face with his mother. Smiling guiltily, he tried to untangle his fingers from Nicole's, without much success as Nicole held on tighter to his hand. Gently, he pried her fingers away from his hand and settled her hand up by her pillow. Chizuko sighed and smiled, deciding to let it go because of how cute they had looked.

"_'kaa-san?_" he mumbled, wiping the sleep out of his eyes with one hand. "_What's going on? It's too early..._"

Chizuko rolled her eyes - true it was about six in the morning, but it was starting to get lighter outside and the morning people were starting to get up. But the fewer people out there were, the better - it wouldn't do to have her son seen heading for _that_ area of town. Miku was starting to pick up on something that was wrong and was awake within a very few moments, shaking his head. His mother gestured for him to follow her, so he unfolded himself, pushed himself up off the floor, and followed obediently, frowning.

"_Your ojii-san has something to tell you_," Chizuko told her son in a soft voice, ushering him into his grandfather's room.

_"'kaa-san, what's going on?"_ asked Miku, upset by the look on his mother's face and the tone of her voice. "_Is something wrong? Did something happen?_"

His mother shook her head and swallowed hard, unable to speak at the moment.

"_Well, sit down, boy,_" snapped the grandfather, pointing at a place on the floor as though he were ordering a dog to sit instead of his grandson. "_Like your okaa-san said, I have something to tell you. Now sit down!"_

Still frowning in confusion and a growing feeling of dislike, Miku sat down, not crossing his legs but sitting formally, staring at his grandfather. He knew something was wrong and his gut told him that it was something that had to do with Nicole - he felt sick to his stomach. The grandfather drew himself up, once more acting quite imperious, and ordered Chizuko out of the room as if shooing a dog. Chizuko bowed respectfully and left the room, gritting her teeth to keep from verbally ripping the old man a new one. Miku drew himself up as well.

"_What was it you wanted me to see you about, ojii-san?_" he asked politely, trying to keep his voice from sounding too hard.

"_That gaijin girl you brought in,_" the old man spat crossly. "_Sell her off._"

"_Excuse me!?" _cried Miku, jumping to his feet. "_What are you talking about, ojii-san!?_"

The grandfather snorted irritably.

"_Take her into town and get some money for her,_" he said curtly. "_It's easy enough. She's a gaijin, so you should get a good deal._"

Miku was outraged, to say the least. He understood what the old man was telling him to do - he had seen a father sell his daughter into slavery after catching her kissing her childhood friend just weeks ago. But how could that terrible old man ask him, no, order him to do the same thing to Nicole!? He wouldn't do it, just simply wouldn't do it! There was no way he could! It was wrong... It was a sin to defile an angel! He swallowed hard and opened his mouth to argue.

"_Demo... Ojii-san... What if I were to make her my wife!?_" he begged, tears stinging his eyes. "_She could have a son to carry on the family!_"

"_Don't you dare speak like that to your grandfather!_" roared the old man, puffing up again. "_I am your elder and you do what I say! I forbid you to take that gaijin as a wife, concubine, lover, slave or anything else! She's worth good money and we need that money to eat on!_"

The grandfather quieted down, took a breath, and started again.

"_You can't just let your mother and sisters go hungry, can you?_" he persisted, his voice taking on an oily, manipulative tone that Miku didn't like one bit. "_What about me? You couldn't let your honored elder die of hunger, could you?_"

"_Old man, I could see you rot in the deepest pit of hell and not bat an eye_," snarled Miku, spitting his words like an adder spat venom.

"_But your mother... She works so hard to supplement the little income you bring in selling meat,_" the old man went on. "_I know you can see it... She's exhausted... She wouldn't be like this if you measured up to your brothers..."_

Tears welled up in Miku's eyes again. The old man was wearing at him.

"_And your little sisters, Okon and Omasu,"_ the grandfather went on. "_They're getting so thin... How do you think they'll be able to attract suitors if they grow up thin and starved like that?_"

A single tear escaped.

"_Ojii-san, it's WRONG! She's an innocent girl! How can you even think about doing that!?_" pleaded Miku, his voice bordering on hysterical. "_Ojii-san ONEGAISURU! Otou-san wouldn't have wanted this!_"

"_Oh pull yourself together and be a man,_" spat the grandfather. "_Do what I say and don't speak to me about my son. I don't want to hear another word - the matter is closed. Now get out of my sight."_

Miku ran from the room and bolted for the front door. Chizuko was sitting in back of the house, trying to get a fire started under some kindling. She had heard the entire conversation, as had every other house within two or three kilometers, and she knew what was coming. Miku ran around to the back of the house and fell on his knees by his mother's side, breathing hard and trying to keep himself from crying. He couldn't lose face now, not after such a defeat by his grandfather. Chizuko opened her arms to her son and let him let his pain out, crying into her shoulder.

Glossary of Japanese Words and Phrases

_"Yamero_" - a more masculine form of "_Yamate_", which means "Stop"

"_Ima, oshiete._" - "Now, tell me."

"_Doushite namida?_" - "Why are you crying?" lit. "Why the tears?"

"_Nemuritai"_ - "I want to sleep."

"_Okaa-san?_" - "Mother/Mom?"

"_Okaa-san to Otou-chan, ne_?" - "Your mother and father, right?"

"_Doko_?" - "Where?"

"_Atashi amerikaijin_." - informal, "I'm an American."

"_Shirimasen_" - "I don't know."

"_Mahou?_" - "Magic?"

"_Atashi haguru! Haguru!"_ - "I'm lost! LOST!" (probably not conjugated right)

"_Hontou?_" - "Really?"

"_Onegai! Maniukeru!_" - "Please! Believe me!" (also probably conjugated wrong)

"_Daijoubu, Nikooru-chan._" - "It's all right, Nicole-chan."

"_Chikusho!_" - All-purpose swear word to express dismay

_hakama_ - the kind of pants Kenshin wears and that Kaoru wears to train, also part of the Shinsengumi uniform.

"_Maa, maa_" - "There, there" or "Now, now" (A calming expression)

_onii-chan_ - cute term for older brother, can be used for male friends who are older or that a girl has a crush on

"_Tadaima!_" - "I'm back!" , more commonly "I'm home!"

"_Youkoso kimi ni wa, Nikooru-san._" - "Welcome to you, Miss Nicole."

"_Hajimemashite, Hasegawa-san._" - "It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Hasegawa."

"_Mii-chan"_ - family nickname used by Miku's family

"_Ojii-chan" _- family name for "Grandfather"

"_Oyasumi nasai, Nikooru-chan_." - "Good night, Nicole-chan."

"_Ahou onna_" - a particularly insulting way to say "stupid woman"

"_Demo..._" - "But..."

"_ONEGAISURU!_" - An impassioned masculine form of "Please!" (He's taking a risk here, using an almost-command.)


	4. Tears of Rage

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 3

"Tears of Rage"

Miku felt like he could die right then. He was crying his heart out into his mother's shoulder and in broad daylight too - at least it was because he actually had something important ot cry about. Harsh, wracking sobs shook his whole body as he clung to his mother, just like he had done as a child. If his father were alive, none of this would be happening - his father had been staunchly for the Revolution. The concept of master and slave was an abomination to him and it was a value that he taught to his children - even Okon and Omasu. Miku swallowed hard, lifted his head from his mother's shoulder, and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand, partially ashamed of himself for getting so emotional, partially wanting to cry again.

"_I hate that old man..._" he gritted out through clenched teeth.

"_Dame. You mustn't say things like that,_" his mother admonished him "_You can disagree with his opinions and his actions, but he is still your elder and you must respect him._"

"_Okaa-san, TELL me you're not saying what I think you're saying!_" pleaded Miku, gripping his mother's hand.

She bit her lip and couldn't meet his eyes, those topaz eyes that mirrored his late father's.

"_Okaa-san, you can't be serious!_" Miku yelled, red in the face as tears of rage and passion slid down his cheeks.

Chizuko found that she could no longer look at her son, so she turned her head away - if she saw the pain she knew he would have etched in his expression, she knew she would crack. Miku's voice softened and he pulled on his mother's hand, trying to get her to look at him. He understood what was happening, but that didn't mean he had to agree with it. Why wasn't his mother trying to _do_ something? Oh, that's right, he thought sourly. She can't do anything. Still, it enraged him that she wasn't even making an attempt, that she was complying without a fuss. If there was ever a time when a great big noisy fuss was needed, sure as hell it was now. Miku's expression hardened and he snatched his hands away from his mother's as if he were dropping a poisonous spider.

"_So that's how it is, okaa-san..._" he said harshly, standing up and turning away.

"_Mii-chan, onegai---_" begged Chizuko, trying to push back the lump in her throat.

"_Only my **mother** can call me that,_" spat Miku. "_If this is how it's going to be, then I'm no son of yours._"

"_Miku! Iya! Onegai, Miku! Yamate!_" his mother implored him, falling on her knees and reaching out to him. "_You're breaking my heart! I don't agree with what the old man does or says, but there is **nothing** I can do! Onegai Miku, don't leave your family alone! Ojii-san is too old to provide for us and I simply can't make enough doing laundry! I don't know what we would do without you!_"

"_Is that all I am to you? A provider?_" Miku asked in a drifting voice.

"_Iya! Of course not! You're my youngest son and I love you! With your brothers gone and your father gone, you're all I have left!_" cried Chizuko. "_If you still wish to leave me, think of your sisters! They love you! You mean the world to them!_"

"_But think of your mother first,_" came an oily, rasping voice from behind them. "_If you leave, all she has left to make money off of is herself... Do you really want to degrade your mother like that? Think about it. The last thing we need is one more useless mouth to feed. Take the gaijin girl and get a good price for her. It's her or your family. Think hard about where your loyalties lie..._"

Miku opened his mouth to argue, but no sound came out. He gave his mother one last pleading look - there were tears in her eyes, but she held them back. Her heart wished she could tell him that she hated the old man too, that she wanted the girl to be free, maybe to become his wife. But society told her to listen to and obey her elders, especially her husband's father now that her husband and mother-in-law were both deceased. For the sake of her family, she just had to harden her heart and get done what needed to be done. Still she was ready to cry - she was in a no-win situation. Miku's own lip trembled, but he bit down on it roughly, drawing blood.

_It's hopeless_, he thought finally, still tense and partially ready to fight.

"_Given it some thought?_" asked the grandfather, his voice condescending.

Two last tears slipped out as Miku let out a deep breath and his shoulders fell in defeat. The battle between two halves of his heart was over and his family had won. He swallowed hard and walked away from his mother, past his grandfather without a word or so much as a backwards glance. Overwhelmed, he sat down on his front step and put his face in his hands, not crying, for he had no more tears, but thinking. Maybe there was another way to get the money... No, then he would still have to bring Nicole home with him. He didn't know of anyplace else where she could stay. He took in another deep breath and let it out shakily.

There was no alternative. But he couldn't tell Nicole what was going on - he didn't want to see the look on her face when her _onii-chan_... He couldn't even make his brain form the words. Sighing again, he stood up, brushed his _hakama_ off, and turned to open the front _shoji_. His hand fumbled for a moment, then slid it open automatically - it felt like he had a large gap between his brain and his spinal cord, just so hard to do the simplest things. He stepped into the entryway to kick off his sandals but looked down and remembered that he had run outside barefoot.

_I can at least let her sleep for a little while longer..._ he thought sadly, stepping into the main room where she still slept, curled up on his futon with her glasses beside her pillow.

A sad smile curved his lips as he looked her over - she was just so small and innocent and she looked so peaceful sleeping in the sun like that. He padded over to the futon and knelt beside it. The sunlight danced across her face and made her hair look like it was fiery red - it matched her spirit. Nicole shifted a little in her sleep and her hand came out from under the blanket, almost hitting her glasses. Gently, carefully, Miku took her hand - her left - in his own left hand and twined their fingers together again, just as they had been sleeping. Before he could stop himself, he reached out to touch her cheek with his other hand - her skin was soft...

Then he shook his head. He should wake her up, because they had a lot of walking to do to get to the main road of Edo, then to the assigned district. Still... He wanted to touch that hair one more time before she woke up. He trailed his fingers along her cheek once more and let them thread into her hair, feeling the soft strands against his callused hand. He flinched visibly when reality hit him square in the chest and practicality was thrust at him by his mind. It just wasn't good to get so attached to her, not when he was about to... He still couldn't think it - but all the same, best to wake her now.

"_Nikooru-chan,_" he whispered, running his hand through her hair one last time and then placing it gently on her left shoulder. "_Nikooru-chan... It's time to get up... Come on... Mezamenasai..._"

Nicole made a sleepy noise and turned over, pulling the blanket over her head. Shaking his head sadly, Miku took hold of her right shoulder and pulled her down so that she was laying on her back, still curled up. Her body uncurled automatically, then curled right back up again - it was cold and the blanket was warm. Miku shook his head again and carefully slid his left arm under Nicole's shoulders, helping her sit up. Her head drooped forward onto her chest for a moment, but then she jerked it up, let it droop once more, and settled for halfway looking up. Miku watched as her hazel eyes fluttered open, then screwed themselves closed again - it was too bright!

"_Nikooru-chan!_" he hissed, shifting her a little bit. "_Come ON! Mezamenasai!_"

Finally, Nicole opened her eyes and glared sleepily at him.

"Whaddya want?" she mumbled, rubbing at her eyes with one hand - they were still puffy and red.

She yawned widely, cracked her neck, and twisted around to pop her back - Miku winced at the sound.

"_Nikooru-chan, you need to get up,_" he said softly, holding her hand and still supporting her. "_We've... uh... got things to do today..._"

"Like what?" demanded Nicole, trying to stifle another yawn as she reached for her glasses.

"_Erm... Shopping?_" Miku offered weakly.

"Just tell me when!" chirped Nicole, suddenly bright and cheerful.

Miku slapped a hand to his forehead and rolled his eyes.

"_We should leave right about now,_" he told her.

"But I need a bath and how am I supposed to go out in public looking like this?" countered Nicole, throwing the blanket aside to point at the mud still clinging to her pants and socks.

"_Daijoubu, don't worry. People go out in worse,_" he told her dismissively.

Nicole growled and grumbled under her breath, then swung her legs off the futon and made to stand up.

**Back in 2006, at Nicole's school**

The campus was still dripping, as were most of the students. An odd crowd was forming a little bit apart from all the classes in fire-drill formation. The Japanese Culture club people were bunched in around the group and an African-American girl and a boy with curly brown hair were standing to the right of the group. Keith and his friend Patrick were talking quietly to each other beside the Japanese Culture club's remnants. Ashley and Kirsten were standing in the middle of the odd crowd, looking around at everything. Kirsten was trying to talk to Ashley, but couldn't get her to speak. No one wanted to say "It's okay" to her, because they all knew it wasn't. Nicole was her best friend and everybody at that school knew it. The two of them had been together and inseparable since preschool - Nicole made a point of telling everyone she ever met that.

Some of the teachers were trying to settle the students down, some by coaxing, some by shouting, some giving up and doing nothing at all. The guidance counselor, the one who always seemed to be in control - he had even kept his cool on 9/11, for God's sake - seemed acutely distressed. To keep himself busy, he kept checking and re-checking the teachers' roll books, as if making sure that no one else had been claimed by the explosion of water. The dean of students was talking to the president of the school and the high school principal, all of them in hushed voices. Some people were arguing over whether or not to call Nicole's parents.

"They have to know! Now!" said the vice president of the Japanese Culture club firmly.

"I say we let the school handle it," Keith's friend Patrick said matter-of-factly.

"Who says they're going to believe us even if we did call them?" asked Ellen, from the Japanese Culture club. "What happened... back there... was pretty unbelievable if you ask me."

Another group of students, the immature nitwits who threw food and bottle tops at people during lunch, was congregating to discuss the situation also - in loud, obnoxious voices.

"That couldn't possibly have been real," said a scrawny, squirrely-looking blonde-haired boy with large front teeth. "That was just Nicole going all-out with a senior prank!"

"Well then where is she now?" demanded his cohort, a tallish dark-haired boy who also had large front teeth, paired with ears that stuck out like jug handles.

"Probably hiding," said a very tall boy with blondish-brown hair and freckles. "I mean, if I had just nearly blown up the school, I'd be hiding too."

"She's not smart enough to hide!" yelled an African-American boy who was particularly obnoxious. "Remember that day she walked on the rails? She just stood there and waited to get caught! She just does it for attention."

"If she wants attention, then where is she?" broke in Kelly, the girl who was the varsity football team manager. "If she was just doing that for attention, she would want to be here to watch the chaos!"

"Maybe she's dead," snickered an Asian boy from the basketball team.

Ashley snapped. She stalked over to the obnoxious group with a look in her eye that was so deadly, not even Nicole had ever seen it before. The idiots didn't even notice her until she pushed the two boys with the large front teeth aside, shoving her way into the small crowd. The tears that were in her eyes were gone now - now her black-brown orbs flashed with an anger that ran deeper than anything they could fathom.

"_What_ did you say?" she asked in a dangerously quiet voice, her tone shaking with suppressed rage.

"I said I think she's dead," said the Asian boy, finding Ashley's rage very amusing.

He never even saw the blow that broke his nose coming.

"Don't you DARE say that!" roared Ashley, her face turning red as she stood over the boy, who clutched his bleeding nose.

"Oh shit..." the scrawny blonde boy said quietly.

"She is NOT dead!" Ashley continued. "She's NOT!"

And she withdrew back into her shell-shocked state, refusing to speak to anyone. However, the dean of students had seen the whole thing. He walked over and saw that the Asian boy's nose was broken. Had Ashley just belted him a good one, he would have just let it go. That comment would have provoked anyone. But seeing how she had done him real physical damage, he couldn't overlook it. Then he saw the look on Ashley's face. She was staring into space, no longer aware of her surroundings and with no memory of what she had just done.

"Ashley Bloom, you come here this instant," barked the dean of students.

Ashley didn't move - she never even shifted her gaze.

"Ashley!" the dean repeated.

Again, she didn't move.

The crowd had grown tired of watching Ashley, so they went back to their discussions. Some were swearing they had seen Nicole be blown away by the water. Others said she disappeared when she touched the bubble. Most, though they dared not say it out loud, were pretty sure that, whatever the case was as to the explosion, she was dead. How could she possibly have survived that? They all knew Nicole was ridiculously lucky when it came to doing dangerous things - walking the rails, climbing trees, climbing the bleachers when they were folded up... But even Nicole couldn't possibly have gotten away scot-free from an explosion at closer than a gun's point-blank range!

"Ashley, I know this is hard for you," said Mrs. Kirkpatrick in a patient voice. "But that does not excuse you from the consequences of physically harming another student. Ashley? Ashley?"

Ashley had turned away and was talking to Kirsten in a hushed voice and no one but Kirsten could make out what she was saying. Her other friend Natalia was standing there as well, her arm around Ashley's shoulders. Natalia's boyfriend, Daniel, stood by her side, not really knowing what to do or say. To him, Nicole had mostly been something of a nuisance. But that didn't mean he wanted her dead or anything! Natalia was frowning, still unsure of what to do for her friend. Ashley was whispering to her and Kirsten in a hollow voice.

"They're all saying she's dead..." she rasped out. "It's not true... It's not real... She's still alive... Any minute now, she's going to come bouncing out of nowhere laughing because we're all wet... You all know Nicole, right?"

She looked at her two friends, at Daniel, at the Japanese Culture club, and at Keith and Patrick, practically in hysterics.

"You all know Nicole! She's okay! I know she is!" she yelled, not caring who heard her now. "I could feel it if she were gone, I know I could!"

"Ashley," Kirsten said quietly. "If she hasn't come out by now... I mean, it's been, like, two hours... Even she wouldn't stay hidden this long..."

"No!" cried Ashley, her knees shaking, though she wouldn't let herself give out yet. "Nicole's alive! She's okay! Oh what am I saying? She's _gone_!"

With that, she lost it, crying into Kirsten's shoulder while Natalia rubbed her back.

**Pre-Meiji Japan, right outside of Edo**

"_Miku-'niichan_!" chirped Nicole, jogging to keep up with his long strides.

"_Hai?_" Miku responded wearily.

"Look over there!" cried Nicole, pointing at something that was behind a rather large man's shoulder.

"_What is it?_" groused Miku, being jostled by the crowd as he stopped to wait for Nicole.

Nicole grabbed his hand and started elbowing her way through the crowd. Miku let himself be dragged along, still cursing violently in his mind. What on earth was Nicole going to show him this time? They had already been to a weapons stall, where Miku had to drag her away from the _tanto_ display. Then they had wound up at a meat stand, where Nicole set all the chickens free and Miku had to dodge a thrown butcher knife. The chickens all got away. Nicole had also pulled him over to a flower stand, where an elderly man gave her a lily just for being pretty. Miku fumed with jealousy as Nicole stuck the lily in her ponytail, berating himself in his mind for letting her do all this. Well... It was rather like giving a prisoner anything they wanted for their last meal, he supposed.

"_Hora!_" whispered Nicole, pulling Miku away from the crowd and over to a lone _sakura_ tree.

"_What about it? It's a sakura---_" Miku cut his sentence off.

It was the biggest sakura tree he had ever seen, and the only one he could see that was in full blossom. Still, he saw that same tree every year. But seeing it with Nicole, hearing the childlike awe in her voice as she gazed up at the pink, blossom-covered branches, made it somewhat special. The wind picked up and a single blossom blew off the tree, floating down to Nicole, who caught it in her cupped hands. Miku smiled genuinely for the first time that day - it was like the tree was giving her a gift, he thought.

"_Hanakazari no kimi he!_" she said cheerfully, holding the blossom out to him. "For you in full blossom!"

Miku sighed and took the blossom. Seconds later, the wind blew it out of his hand and together they watched it fly away until they couldn't see it anymore. Nicole smiled and tilted her head as if to say "Oh well!" as she began to pull Miku through the crowd again. The next thing they came upon was a booth selling... What were those things? Nicole scampered up to the display and found herself looking at some of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. They were like crystals, but they seemed softer somehow. She pointed at them and asked Miku what in the world they could be.

"_They're candies, made out of a special kind of sugar_," he explained.

How he wished he had the money to buy her a box of them!

"Oh, they're so expensive..." said Nicole, crestfallen.

They turned away and it was now Miku's turn to steer. He kept a hold on Nicole's cape, using it rather like one of those child leashes to guide her through the crowd. His heart was getting heavier and heavier with each step they took - he hated that old man, wanted to leave him behind. But he couldn't without also abandoning the ones he loved. He couldn't say if he loved Nicole - he just felt obligated to protect her, to keep her safe. Of course he cared about her... But that would have to stop soon.

"_Turn this way, Nikooru-chan,_" he told her, pulling her to the right.

"Where are we going, _Miku-oniichan_?" Nicole asked innocently.

Miku stiffened. He just didn't have the heart to tell her.

"_To find you a place to stay,_" he said, his voice almost wavering. "_My ojii-san, I am sorry to say, does not want a gaijin under his roof. Forgive me._"

"I understand!" chirped Nicole. "I'll just stay in Tokyo--- er... Edo!"

Miku swallowed hard and mumbled a noncommittal response.

"_Hai,_" he said quietly, his voice not much more than a rough breath.

He turned to the right again and started to hear the sound of small drums. Yes, there were women of the street plying their trades. He and Nicole were approaching the red-light district. Nicole looked around at everything, confused. Why was Miku bringing her to a place like this? Wherever they were going had to be on the other side of the red-light district. Yeah, that was it, she decided. Still, he could have chosen a better route, she thought. Miku was trying to find a place that looked reasonably clean and had relatively few customers. If he was going to do this horrible thing, he could at least try to find a place that would treat her like a human. Plus, a morbidly pragmatic part of his mind said, a high-class place would most likely pay him more.

Miku dropped Nicole's cape, took her hand, squeezed it, and stopped right where he was. It was the middle of the day, so there weren't as many people swarming around the street in this part of town as there normally would be. That was how his grandfather had wanted it - he couldn't have his grandson seen in the red-light district. To him, Miku's purpose was to marry a girl from a wealthier family than their own. He could care less what the boy did with her, so long as she worked hard and her parents gave a large dowry. Swallowing hard, Miku pulled Nicole close to him and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him. Considering their surroundings, no one would look twice at their display of affection.

"_Sumanu, Nikooru-chan,_" he whispered, hoping to God she couldn't hear him. "_Sumanu_..."

Nicole looked up at the young man she had, over the course of a little more than a day or two, come to see as a brother-figure and protector, her face innocently confused. Miku swallowed hard and pulled himself away from Nicole a little more roughly than he meant to. A frown curved Nicole's lips and furrowed her brow - what was going on? Why weren't they going where they needed to go? She opened her mouth to ask, but closed it again as Miku took her hand and continued leading her down the street. Her face turned from concerned to half-panicked as he made a beeline for a nearby establishment - she couldn't read the name on the sign, but she had a good idea of what the place was and she didn't like it.

"_This looks like a good place,_" Miku lied through his teeth, trying hard not to let his voice shake.

It was true - the place looked simplistic and elegant, not at all like a bawdy-house. A group of pretty young women, their ages undiscernible, was sitting at a beautifully carved table, talking quietly and enjoying tea. Miku swallowed hard - they looked like they were treated decently. Their clothes were highly suggestive but nonetheless very beautiful. He was just noticing a girl who looked to be about the same age as Nicole - and he thought Nicole was maybe sixteen - when the madam of the place swept into view.

"_Irrashaimase, my fine gentleman. Watashi wa Himejima Kiyoko_" she said in a musical voice. "_What brings you here today?_"

_As if she wouldn't know what I'm here for,_ Miku thought irritably. _The men who come in here are either buying or selling._

Embarrassed by the crude thoughts, he fumbled for words for a moment. Nicole was growing antsy and was fighting the unspeakable urge to run. She knew that sometimes high-class places would take in women who had no place to go on a charity basis, but they required payment if the girl was not going to make herself useful. And Nicole didn't have any money - she had left her purse on a bench in the breezeway between two school buildings. It wasn't like these people would take American paper money anyway. She swallowed hard, looking plaintively at Miku, who turned away from her.

"_Nikooru-chan, why don't you go talk to those girls over there?_" he offered lamely, before turning to the elegantly-dressed madam. "_I'm not going to mince words. How much for the gaijin girl?_"

His voice came out harsh and cold, not at all like his own voice. He watched Nicole sidle up to the girls and stand beside the table until one of them gestured for her to sit down. The auburn-haired girl looked quite uncomfortable. Miku swallowed hard once again and cleared his throat. He opened his mouth to address the madam again, but no words would come out - his throat was just stuck. The madam regarded him with a concerned expression. Obviously this young man had never been to the red-light district before. And she had seen the way he had looked at the _gaijin_ girl...

"_I realize it is not my place to ask questions of a customer, but may I inquire---_" she paused, coughing delicately. "_--- What is making you do this?_"

"_I'd rather not talk about it,_" Miku said sharply, his words curt and his voice cold. "_Just tell me how much._"

Kiyoko Himejima's brow furrowed - she didn't like where this was going, but business was business.

"_She is so dirty, though,_" she mused out loud, turning to Miku after watching Nicole for a moment. "_I suppose we could freshen her up and make her look presentable._"

"_Just pay me,_" snapped Miku - he couldn't care less if he was being rude. Then his manner changed - the cold front he had put on dropped away and for a moment, he was just miserable. "_Demo, onegai, promise me you'll treat her well..._"

Himejima-sama bowed her head.

"_We will take care of her here,_" she said quietly. "_She will work, but she will be taken care of. I can give you five hundred yen for her._"

"_May I at least say good-bye?_" Miku asked sadly, looking longingly over at Nicole, who looked nervous as the four young women played with her hair and examined her cape.

"_Of course,_" replied Himejima-sama. "_Would you like me to pay you now?_"

"_Hai,_" Miku responded in a thick, choked voice. "_I don't want... I don't want her to see it..._"

"_Ah, then come into the back with me,_" said Himejima-san, bowing as she gestured to a _noren_ curtain that covered the doorway to the back of the establishment.

Nicole couldn't believe what was happening - then again, she wasn't entirely _sure_ of what was happening. She gestured at the curtain, trying to communicate with the girls. She knew she could probably speak to them and have them understand, just like with Miku, but words escaped her at the moment. The girls just giggled and continued playing with her hair - they knew that when a man went back there, it was strictly for business. Miku, for his part, was keeping himself remarkably calm, though inside, he was screaming. Himejima-sama extracted a small bag from the long sleeve of her elegant kimono and opened it quickly. She looked in it and rolled her eyes.

"_Matte kudasai,_" she said softly. "_I shall be back momentarily._"

The elegant madam padded down the hall, took a left, and entered her personal chambers. She quickly pulled the correct drawer open and eyeballed the collected money. Gauging the small stacks, she scooped up five hundred yen with deft fingers and deposited it in the small money bag from her sleeve. She slid the drawer closed again and hastened from her chambers. Something in the back of her mind told her that what she was doing was wrong, but she pushed it away - women in business had no place for a conscience. Still her heart twinged a bit for the young man.

_I wish I had had someone who cared about me so much,_ she thought sadly. _It would have saved me a lot of trouble._

Miku was standing in the hallway, now visibly shaking. He swallowed hard as Himejima-sama stepped back into view and produced a now-full linen bag. She assured him that there was indeed five hundred yen in the bag and bowed as she placed it in the hand he stretched out automatically. Touching his shoulder for less than a second, she ushered him back to the front of her establishment. Miku shook his head, just to clear it, and stepped back into the warm sunlight let in by the paper in the _shoji_ panels. He cleared his throat and approached Nicole, stopping a few feet from the table. The girls in kimono scurried away, giggling.

"_Come here, Nikooru-chan,_" Miku whispered hoarsely, holding his hand out to her.

Nicole pushed herself unsteadily to her feet and managed to walk over to him in a rather wobbly fashion. He caught her as her twisted knee gave out again, catching her before she hit the floor. Carefully, he let her stand on her own, keeping one strong hand on her shoulder. Blinking back tears, he stroked her cheek, then ran his fingers into her hair again. She looked down, trying to hide her own tears, but he tilted her face up to his. Himejima-sama politely looked the other way, feeling like an intruder on their private moment.

"_Nikooru... I'm sorry... I'm so very sorry..._" Miku said softly.

Nicole's eyes widened at the use of her name on such a familiar level.

"_Miku... Doushite?_" she asked, her voice wavering. "What's going on?"

Part of her knew what was happening - part of her didn't want to know.

Miku couldn't say a word to her. He just stroked her under her chin and tilted her face up to his again. Carefully, tenderly, he brought his lips down on hers, silencing her questions. Nicole's eyes filled with tears as she accepted his kiss, slowly wrapping her arms around him. A tear escaped his own eye as he closed them and that single clear drop left a wet trail on his face as he pressed Nicole closer to him. Nicole was the first to part her lips - it was a reflex she could no longer deny - and Miku did so as well, gently sliding his tongue into her mouth. He could taste her tears. A mix of emotions grabbed hold of him and he took in a sharp breath, pulling back from Nicole abruptly.

"_There's a lot of things I shouldn't have done,_" he said to her, his voice shaking as he steadied himself by touching her face. "_But remember, I did ask you to forgive me..._"

He embraced her one last time, hugging her fiercely to him, holding her so tight that neither of them could breathe.

"_Forgive me..._" he said again, kissing her lips gently as he set her down again.

His hand lingered on her cheek for another second, then he turned away and left without a word - good-bye would have made it too real.


	5. Slave Law

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 4

"Slave Law"

"_Well, I suppose that's that,_" Himejima-sama said softly, watching the young man walk away. She turned to Nicole, who stood right where she was, gaping. "_Maa maa, darling, we'll have you fixed up in no time._"

"No," Nicole said quietly, still staring at the door.

Himejima-sama furrowed her brow and tried again.

"_Come on now, what's done is done,_" she said in a no-nonsense tone. "_It's time to get you clean and presentable._"

"No," repeated Nicole, her voice drifting. "No, no, no..."

She sank to the floor, curled up and whispering "No" over and over. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her mix of emotions - shock, fear, grief, and the pain of betrayal - would not allow her to cry. A sudden accidental shift of weight caused her foot to catch on her cape, tipping her over and rubbing another friction burn, this one on her cheek. Himejima-sama stepped over to the girl on the floor, looked down at her, and shook her own head. This simply wouldn't do - it would be evening soon and she would have to be ready for business by then.

"_Yumi-chan! Saki-chan!_" she called. "_Come here for a moment, if you would._"

Two young women came out of the hallway, both of them wearing off-the-shoulder kimono and giggling. One of them looked like she was a little younger than Nicole and one looked a little older. Their faces turned to polite amusement as they bowed respectfully to their mistress. Himejima-sama nodded her head at them and gestured to Nicole. The young women understood and automatically nodded. A new girl, and this one seemed like she was kind of special, being a _gaijin_ and all. They knelt beside her and each put a hand on either of her shoulders. Nicole shook her head and curled up tighter, but they continued to pull at her. Finally, she went limp and the two of them half carried, half dragged her into the back, towards the bath house.

_She's so different,_ they thought, looking her over.

Nicole jerked back up, hyper-alert, when she felt the heat of the bath house and felt the two young women trying to remove her clothes.

"Hey! Hey! I can do this myself!" she snapped, swatting their hands away. "And I'd like to keep my clothes. Is it possible to have them washed?"

The girls took one look at Nicole's pants and shook their heads in unison.

"I have to keep my cape, though, alright?" Nicole bargained, to which the girls agreed.

She stripped down to her underwear - they were all girls, so it didn't matter.

"And my underwear!" she snapped as the girls got a little too nosy for her comfort.

The girls giggled and nodded.

"_Oh! We haven't introduced ourselves_!" piped up the one in the mint-green kimono with orange trim, her speech casual and her voice chipper. "_Atashi Nakajo Saki!_"

Nicole bowed respectfully to Saki.

"_And watashi wa Komagata Yumi,_" said the older woman, her voice musical like Himejima-sama's and her speech leaning on the side of formal. "_Onamae wa nan desu ka?_"

"I'm Nicole Barrington," Nicole introduced herself. "_Hajimemashite, Komagata-san and Nakajo-san._"

"_Oi, call me Saki-chan,_" Saki said dismissively.

"_You may call me Yumi-san,_" added Yumi, nodding sanctimoniously. "_Forgive us if we ask a few questions?_"

"Sure!" chirped Nicole - all right, she could handle this, just some girl talk.

"_First of all, how old are you?_" asked Saki. "_I never can tell with gaijin._"

"I'm eighteen, how 'bout y'all?" replied Nicole.

"_Erm, I'm not entirely sure what you just said, but I'm seventeen next week,_" said Saki - it seemed she was the talkative one of the two girls. "_And Yumi here is, what, nineteen?_"

"_I'm twenty-one, I'll have you know,_" snapped Yumi, poking the other girl, who "eep"-ed. Then Yumi tried to change the subject. "_Saki-chan, I know you have the night off tonight, but I have work, so can we just get Nikooru-san clean and dressed?_"

"_Oh! Sure!_" chirped Saki, turning to Nicole. "_Bath time!_"

"I could sure 's hell use a bath, thank you," responded Nicole, nodding her head in thanks.

She thought the girls would leave right about then and just let her take her bath, but she was sorely mistaken on that point. They averted their eyes while Nicole stripped down the rest of the way, but then they wrapped her in a towel and bustled her on into the bath house. She tried to protest, but she was more concerned with holding her towel up, which was scarcely enough to keep her covered. How in the world could the girls on Sailor Moon go OUT to a hot spring in only these tiny little towels? she wondered.

"_All right,_" said Saki cheerfully, showing up with a wooden bucket full of warm water. "_Towel off!_"

"Now wait just a minute!" protested Nicole, clutching her towel. "Don't I get a say in --- YEEP!"

"_Nope,_" quipped Yumi as she jerked the towel out of her hands and held it away from her, snapping it with a flourish.

Nicole squawked and squalled, curling up and trying to keep herself covered, but the girls pried her hands away from her body - she immediately snapped them back.

"_Y'know Yumi?_" asked Saki conversationally, as if this was something they did every day. "_I think we're just going to have to do this the hard way._"

"_Proceed,_" agreed Yumi.

Saki nodded and Yumi hopped out of the way as she up-ended the bucket of almost-hot water over Nicole's head.

"HEY!" roared Nicole, clawing at her hair in an attempt to get it out of her eyes. "What the fuck? What the bleeping hell was that for?"

Saki popped up, her sleeves tied back and with a new bucket of warm water and a bar of soap in hand. Yumi was bringing up the rear, juggling an assortment of different-shaped bottles. Nicole, who had curled up again, trying to preserve what was left of her dignity, growled menacingly as the two girls advanced on her. Yumi pulled up three stools, sitting on one herself, giving one to Saki, and piling all the different bottles on the third. Another low growl emitted from the back of Nicole's already-sore throat.

"_Um... Yumi? I think she might bite me,_" Saki said, giving Nicole a look that paired almost-disgust with almost-fascination.

"_Just put soap on your hands and let her try,_" responded Yumi.

Saki still looked rather disconcerted.

"Give it here," snapped Nicole, snatching the soap. "Finally I know what something is. I can take care of this myself. Turn around!"

"_You'd better get used to this, gaijin,_" drawled Yumi, hopping out of the way of a thrown wet towel. "_You might get special treatment at first, but once you're one of us, don't expect it._"

Nicole growled rather disturbingly and Yumi felt it was wise to back away. The auburn-haired girl growled again and Saki, who had been trying to poke her with a bath brush handle, jumped backwards for the sake of her well-being. A third and final growl and they were both thoroughly convinced that turning around was just the right thing to do. Satisfied, Nicole sudsed up the brush Saki had been trying to poke her with and started vigorously scrubbing her shoulders. The real boar bristles were stiff but yielding and they left her skin rather pinched-feeling and red. She supposed she would get used to it until she could find her way to a better situation.

Next came scrubbing her legs. She wished she could have somehow had her razor get warped through time with her, because being the cultured Western girl she was, she needed to do a little maintenance. Then a chill ran down her spine - the Japanese knew just about everything about hair removal... Her teeth clenched and she gave an involuntary twitch - shaving and doing it herself was fine, but she was a little leery of waxing and a lot leery of... Well, you know... She continued down her legs and started on her feet - she hated her feet. Because of all the walking she did, well, she just didn't like them, let's leave it at that. The boar bristles were good exfoliators though... Finally, she twisted her arm around, held her hair out of the way, and started scrubbing her back as best she could. Being a fairly talented contortionist, she managed pretty easily.

"_Are you done yet?_" whined Saki, fidgeting.

Nicole snarled a negative response and reached for a washcloth. She stuck it in the warm water and started rinsing the soap off herself. The water felt nice to her over-exfoliated skin, so she took a little longer than she normally would have, but then again, this wasn't exactly a normal situation, was it? She growled in irritation at herself and picked up the water bucket, intending to dump it over her head. Then she remembered something from back home - _water buckets can be thrown with deadly accuracy._ It was on the list of All I Needed To Know In Life I Learned From Rurouni Kenshin, the paper copy of which resided taped to her wall. If she ever got home, she would have to re-tape it.

_If I ever get home..._ she thought sadly, tears welling up in her eyes.

Yumi and Saki heard Nicole sniffle and turned around, averting their eyes as much as they could, to see what the matter was. Nicole was curled up on the floor, crying into her washcloth and stinging her eyes with the soapy water. Yumi gently pried the washcloth out of Nicole's fingers and dipped it in the bucket, helping her rinse off. With the soap gone, Saki handed Yumi a towel, which she gave to Nicole to wrap herself in. Nicole wrapped herself in the white towel and continued crying into a corner of it. Yumi patted her head, unsure of what else to do.

"_We're going to wash your hair now,_" she informed Nicole, taking the wet mass of auburn waves in one hand and reaching for one of the many bottles with the other.

"_Use the oil first,_" directed Saki.

Yumi took a bottle that looked like a sake bottle and poured a measured amount of lavender oil onto the crown of Nicole's head and started working it down to the ends. Nicole sniffled - lavender was her favorite scent to use in the bath back home. Following this, Yumi took a comb and started separating a few locks of hair at a time to de-tangle. From not having access to a brush in two days, Nicole's hair took its time in cooperating. However, eventually Yumi was able to sit back and watch Nicole's hair hang in a straight, glistening cascade with the ends touching her tailbone.

"_Let me do the shampoo!_" squealed Saki. "_I love doing this - please?_"

Yumi handed Saki the shampoo and Saki started sudsing up Nicole's hair. Nicole could have started purring if her throat wasn't so sore - Saki had long fingernails and it felt like one of those 'tingler' things. You know, the things that look sort of like copper spiders that you rub on your head? She sighed deeply and squinched her eyes tighter to keep the shampoo out of them and to keep her tears from escaping. Saki was quite enthusiastic - a little too enthusiastic - so by the time Nicole's hair was thoroughly sudsed, her ears looked like they had been boiled - they were red from Saki's fingernails.

"_Keep your eyes closed!_" warned Saki, taking the new bucket of warm water from Yumi and up-ending it over Nicole's head.

_I just need to get used to that..._ Nicole grumbled inwardly.

"_Use that conditioning cream stuff!_" Saki chirped at Yumi.

"_Way ahead of you,_" replied Yumi, pouring some of the cream on her palm and rubbing her hands together.

Yumi wasn't as forceful as Saki was, but the effect of the massage on Nicole's scalp was just the same - it had kind of a tingly feeling. It was like when she wa little an her mom would wash her hair for her, then do the cream rinse just like the lady at the salon said to - her hair was so easily tangled and the cream rinse helped. Nicole sniffled - it seemed like just about everything reminded her of when she was back home. Would she ever be able to get back? Questions bowled themselves over in her head, tripping over themselves in their haste to get to the forefront of her mind. It was enough to give her a splitting headache, even with Yumi's scalp massage.

"_Rinse time,_" Yumi told her, pouring just a little water on her hair and combing through it.

It was taken a little bit at a time, until Nicole's hair hung straight to her tailbone once more, softened, straight, and still shining. It was allowed to drip dry for a few minutes, then Yumi wrapped it in a towel and gently squeezed the water out. Then she piled it on top of Nicole's head in a sort of knot and stuck a hair stick through it. This was quite an achievement with one hair stick, as Nicole had a lot of hair. Saki came bounding out of the room where the big bath was, her face bright red and her hair in frizzies from the humidity.

"_Bath's ready!_" she chirped happily. "_Nikooru-chan! Come on!_"

Nicole clutched at her towel with one hand, wiped her eyes with the other, and tried to rise to her feet. Her knee protested painfully, cracking quite loudly, and she sank back down again. Yumi slid one of her arms over her own shoulders and helped drag her up. Saki took hold of her other hand and helped pull her along. Nicole managed to put a little weight on her bad knee and was able to sort of hop to the tub. There was steam rising off the water and for a moment Nicole thought, _oh great, more ways to burn my skin off._

"_You can keep your towel on if you like,_" Saki offered helpfully.

"_Arigato gozaimasu!_" Nicole replied with sincere gratitude in her voice, hoisting herself into the tub. "YEEOW SHIT!"

She hopped right back out again, slipped on the wet floor and fell flat on her backside, where she sat, fuming.

"_Okay, let's try this again,_" said Yumi resignedly.

So Nicole was pulled back up and practically shoved into the bathtub. She found that it was actually quite nice if she didn't move too much. Saki beamed and Yumi shook her head at the younger girl's enthusiasm - it just wasn't her day, now, was it? Yumi heaved a tired sigh and backed out of the room, quietly mentioning that she had work to get to. Saki nodded and Nicole tried to, but found it rather painful to move in the hot water. She looked around the room. It was sparkling clean, except for the mess the three young women had made in the floor with the water and oil and hair products. When she looked straight again, she saw Saki watching her.

"_So how did a girl like you end up here?_" the girl in green asked unabashedly. "_And how in the world did you get so dirty?_"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Nicole said stiffly, trying not to cry again.

"_Oh come on! We all know each other's stories here!_" Saki urged persistently. "_My father sold me off to pay a debt and I can talk about it. Yours can't be that bad._"

So Nicole once more launched into her explanation of the water spell and the bubble and waking up on the tail end of the Bakumatsu. Saki's eyes widened until they looked to be the size of saucers, but she kept silent, listening carefully to what the new girl had to say. Nicole sniffled as she told Saki how she had watched her best friend walk away and how everybody back home must think she was dead. The girl in green didn't quite understand most of the story, but she knew how painful it was to watch someone you cared for and who cared for you in return walk away. Nicole was just getting to the part about how she was running around in the forest playing Quidditch by herself. Saki didn't even want to know what Quidditch was.

"And then there was Miku..." she said softly. "He found me."

Breathing erratically and obviously in tears, Nicole continued her story about how Miku had found her, lying unconscious on the forest floor, and tried to help her. Her voice turned wistful as she thought out loud about the way he had helped her eat, though she assured Saki that at the time she wanted to smack him - Saki smiled. Nicole's voice turned rather dull as she recounted their walk through the forest and how she had twisted her knee. Her face turned redder than it had been before as she told Saki how he had kissed her to distract her and how it had flustered her so. She sounded even sadder as she thought back to how nice Hasegawa-san had been and how cute the little girls were.

_For some reason, those little girls looked so familiar,_ she thought vaguely.

But the vague thought passed quickly. She had not heard any of Hasegawa-san's arguments with the grandfather or Miku's either. She just continued on, how Miku took her shopping and all the pretty things that they saw. A hiccup made her twitch as she came to the part about the sakura tree. Mentioning the candies made her throat go dry and she was almost unable to force out another word. She wiped her tears away and made herself continue.

"And then he... brought me here..." she finished lamely.

"_Wow..._" was Saki's awed reply. "_With the way he treated you, I bet he'll come back for you!_"

"I don't think so," Nicole half-mumbled, sinking lower in the water. "Not after the way he just walked off. And asked me to forgive him..."

"_Will you forgive him?_" asked Saki.

Nicole closed her eyes and nodded.

-- At the Hasegawa's house --

Chizuko was beside herself with grief. She couldn't believe what she had just done - what she had just made her youngest son do. Okon and Omasu were crying again, hungry, but she had nothing to spare that she could give them as a snack - food was tight enough as it was. She couldn't stop dwelling on it. The old man had gone back to sleep, the lazy old pig, so here was Chizuko's chance to act. The old man had disgraced their family. She knew what she would have to do after it was over, but the price was worth it. Her mind was made up and that was final. Quickly, she got the girls dressed and got dressed herself. They were going out for a while.

"_Okon! Omasu!_" she called softly, getting the young girls' attention back on her. "_We're going over to Nakamura-san's house and you're going to stay there for a while._"

The little girls knew better than to ask questions when their mother had "that" look on her face, so they kept their mouths shut and held on to their mother's hands. Omasu, the six-year-old, tripped over her sandals and Chizuko had to do some fast talking to keep her quiet. The little brown-haired girl nodded and slipped her feet into her sandals with the help of her eight-year-old sister, Okon, who already had hers on. Chizuko nodded at her daughters and slipped on her own sandals. Okon slid the _shoji_ open and the three of them stepped outside together, leaving the door standing open.

It was a quick and quiet walk to Nakamura Miharu's house in the center of the village. Chizuko had Omasu hold her sister's hand as she (Chizuko) knocked on the door. Since most of the time people just came in with a polite "_gomen kudasai_", this was a major sign that something was wrong. There was a scuffling noise on the other side of the door and in a few moments, a woman who appeared to be in her twenties appeared. Balanced rather precariously on her hip was a five-year-old girl with raven hair and even darker eyes.

"_Michi-chan!_" squealed Omasu. "_Michi---_"

"_Quiet, Omasu,_" Chizuko snapped, a little harsher than she meant to. She tried to cover it up with a cheerful greeting for the younger woman. "_Ohayou gozaimasu, Nakamura-san._"

"_Youkoso!_" replied the young mother. "_Won't you come in?_"

Chizuko and her two daughters stepped into the entryway and all slid their sandals off. Nakamura-san set her daughter, Michiko, down and the three little girls scurried away to one of the back rooms of the house. Chizuko brushed the traveling dust off her kimono and stood until Nakamura-san gestured for her to sit down. Normally, Chizuko was on familiar terms with the younger woman, but today stress was making her act very formal and distant. Nakamura-san immediately noticed the change and knew something was wrong.

"_Hasegawa-san, what's wrong?_" she asked quietly, figuring that the neighbors could do without hearing this conversation. "_You look like you've just seen a ghost!_"

"_Nakamura-san, can I entrust you with my daughters for a while?_" Chizuko asked, dodging the question. "_It's a matter of some urgency._"

Nakamura-san checked over her shoulder to make sure the little girls weren't listening and nodded.

"_Of course. They can stay as long as they need to,_" she said cheerfully. "_I don't mind them. I need more to keep me busy with Makoto off fighting in the war..._"

Her voice trailed off and Chizuko coughed politely to bring her attention back to the present moment.

"_The old man has gone too far,_" Chizuko said firmly. "_He has disgraced our family and I will tolerate it no longer._"

Before Nakamura-san could ask, Chizuko poured out the story of how her son had brought home a _gaijin_ girl and what a stink it had raised in the house. The old man simply would not listen to reason and insisted that they sell her off, and Chizuko, unable to override his decision, had complied. But that wasn't the worst of it, she continued. Since _he_ couldn't go wandering around - too old - and he couldn't have Chizuko out there, he sent Miku to do it. Nakamura-san gasped - she always knew the oldest Hasegawa was a piece of work, but she never knew he would stoop that low.

"_In complying, I have disgraced our family as well,_" Chizuko explained, her voice now curt. _"I do not wish for my daughters, who are innocent in this, to suffer, but I know what I must do._"

Nakamura-san didn't know exactly what her friend was going to do, but she had a pretty good idea and she didn't like it one bit - still, for the sake of the little girls and the Hasegawa family's honor, she would go along with it.

"_Well... Do you want to say good-bye, or do you not want them to know?_" she asked finally.

"_I'll say my good-byes, thank you,_" Chizuko replied, her voice strained. "_Okon! Omasu! Come here!_"

There was a thundering noise and the three little girls - Okon, Omasu, and Michiko - came pelting into view. Okon, in the lead, stopped short and the others rammed into her from behind. All of them fell over in a very cute little puppy-pile, looking up at their respective mothers. Chizuko and Miharu couldn't help but smile at their little girls. Okon pushed herself to her feet and pulled her sister up with her. Michiko hopped right back up like a little bunny rabbit and dashed over to her mother's side, landing _on_ her mother's side in a flying tackle-hug. Okon and Omasu carefully sidled up to their mother - they knew she was in a funny mood and they knew it wasn't good.

"_Mama is going to take care of some business at home,_" Chizuko said softly, opening her arms to her daughters. "_Come here and tell me good-bye._"

Okon swallowed hard and stepped forward to hug her mother.

"_'Bye 'kaa-san,_" she whispered as her mother held her tight. "_I love you._"

"_I love you too, Ko-chan,_" Chizuko whispered back, finally letting go of her older daughter. "_Come on Maa-chan._"

Omasu curled up in her mother's lap and looked up at her plaintively.

"_Maa-chan lov'th 'kaa-'than,_" she said softly, lisping because she had already lost her two front teeth. "_Don' go 'way... Onegai?"_

Chizuko had to fight back tears as she held her youngest child for the last time.

"_Daijoubu, Maa-chan,_" she said quietly. "_You and your sister are going to be fine._"

She said her good-bye and lifted the child out of her lap before she had a chance to ask "_What about you?_"

-- Back at Himejima-sama's establishment --

"No fucking way! Absolutely not! I refuse!" hollered Nicole, thrashing as best she could while trying to keep herself covered with her towel. "There is NO WAY you're getting me into that!"

Saki sweatdropped, exasperated - for the last half hour, she had tried coaxing, cajoling, whining, pleading, insisting, coercing, and everything short of outright physical threats to get Nicole into a kimono. It wasn't that Nicole had anything against kimono - in fact, she was perfectly comfortable in one. She had even worn one to school and gotten away with it all day - but the authoress digresses. It was the _type_ of kimono that Nicole objected to - she did _not _want to wear an off-the-shoulder kimono and she wouldn't, no way, no how. Saki considered using the _koshimo,_ the ribbons that held all the folds in place on the kimono before the _obi_ was tied, to tie her up and dress her forcefully, but decided against it. After all, with Nicole's arms pinned to her sides, it would be even harder for Saki to dress her than it would have been to begin with.

"_Nikooru-san, onegai!_" she whined once more. "_Himejima-sama won't be happy when she sees what a fuss you're making! Come on! It's just a kimono, only it's worn a little different!_"

"I will not go about looking like my clothes are about to fall off!" countered Nicole. "I won't! I won't! I won't!"

She couldn't care less if she was being childish - back home, if she didn't like something, she let everybody know it loud and clear.

"_Well you can't very well go about in THAT either!_" Saki shot back, pointing furiously at the towel that was still wrapped firmly around Nicole's body. "_It's not like you have a choice! Just wear THIS!_"

She brandished the purple kimono with lavender trim, waving it about like a banner - it didn't matter, since these kimono were made to withstand a little rough handling. Nicole, still clutching at her towel, folded her arms as best she could and pouted, grumbling to herself and swearing in English and Japanese. Saki smacked a hand to her own forehead - this girl was _impossible_! Why in the world had Himejima-sama taken her on at all? Couldn't an experienced madam like her spot trouble when it was right under her nose? Why couldn't she see the trouble that was currently sulking on the tatami floor with its hair in scraggly wet ringlets? Saki muttered a few choice words of her own and finally decided she'd had enough.

"_FINE! Go about in a towel! A little, skimpy, barely-covers-your-T-&-A TOWEL!_" she screeched, waving the kimono around fiercely. "_Do what you want! But don't come to me or bother the other girls when you have more work piled up than the rest of us put together!_"

She finished and stood there, huffing and puffing bigger'n Dallas with her face as red as Nicole had ever seen anyone's face ever get.

"_Meep..._" went Nicole, finally cowed and holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay! You win! I'll wear the fucking kimono!"

"_And watch your language!_" screamed Saki. Then she took a deep breath and had a rather sudden mood swing back to her normal, cheery old self. "_Now come here and let me put this on you! Sorry, but that's the rule!_"

-- At the Hasegawa house --

Chizuko slid the _shoji_ closed behind her. The lamp was off, of course - no use in burning it during the day, and she had been out for quite a while - so the only light coming into the house was the moonlight let in by the rice paper panels. Even then, it wasn't much - despite how the day had been, clear and bright, the night was cloudy and the sky threatened rain. Huge black clouds nearly blocked the moon out entirely. That was exactly what Chizuko wanted - she didn't need a lot of light to see by tonight.

_This is for the family honor,_ she thought, steeling herself for what she was about to do.

She tiptoed across the living room, which still had Miku's futon spread out on the floor - in the chaos of the morning, no one had thought to fold it up and put it away. Reaching the hallway, the neat-freak in her kicked her brain and she went back to do just that. With the futon folded up and piled into a far corner, she nodded and turned back to the hallway - it was darker than the rest of the house because it wasn't directly in the light. A shiver trailed up Chizuko's spine, but she suppressed it for the most part and took a deep breath. She needed her wits about her.

The door to the old man's room was closed as usual - had the old pig slept all day? No, the bowl and chopsticks laid outside the door told her that he had at least dragged himself up to grab some rice. Disgusting old man, taking extra meals when there was barely enough to subsist on... Chizuko shook her head and stretched out her hand to the door. But no, she had forgotten something - the thing she needed most at the moment. She hurried back to the living room and pulled up one of the _tatami_ sections. Under it was the little security her husband had left her, to be used in case there was any trouble while he was away. Something told her that he would approve its use now, so she took it up without her hand shaking.

Her courage waned slightly as she approached the old man's door again. What if he was awake? She shuddered at the thought - did she have it in her to do what had to be done and look the old man in the face? Furrowing her brow and straightening her shoulders, she pushed debate aside. The situation was simple - there was one thing that needed doing and she was the one to get it done. She turned the little security over in her hand, fiddling with the handle - questions left her mind and it was set. She slid the door open silently.

The old pig was snoring away on his futon, a disgusting lump of bones, skin, and muscle gone to seed. Chizuko eyed him angrily, cursing him in her mind for all the wrongs he had done the family over the years. She thought of how he would try to bully her husband into doing what he wanted with threats of disgrace. A smile curved her lips as she thought of how bravely Mamoru had stood up to his father, asserting his independence. He never really had cared much for convention. But those thoughts were irrelevant now. The moment was come. Slowly, Chizuko drew the _tanto_ from its _saya_, setting the _saya_ down carefully by her feet. She took a long, hard look at the disgusting old pig and a red haze clouded her vision for a moment.

The knife was slightly off the mark, wounding the old man badly and, of course, waking him up. Chizuko almost dropped the _tanto_ when she heard the old pig's first scream. Clutching the wound in his shoulder, he cried out for help and flailed his other arm uselessly. No one could hear him - even if they could, the old man was obnoxious and disliked by the entire village, so they didn't care anyway. Powered by adrenaline, Chizuko re-gripped the dagger and tried again, this time cutting a nasty gash in the old man's abdomen. Blood poured from both wounds and spattered on her kimono as she withdrew the blade to try one more time. The old man screamed in pain, trying futilely to shield himself with one arm. Chizuko reared her arm back one last time.

The _tanto_ struck its mark, burying its blade deep in the old pig's chest - as it pushed into his heart, he cried out one last time before his eyes glazed over, his expression forever frozen in terror.

Chizuko calmly flicked most of the blood off the blade, then wiped the rest on the sleeve of her kimono - that didn't matter anymore anyway. Bending down, she picked up the _saya_ and slipped the blade back into it. Smiling bemusedly, she straightened the blood-stained blanket over the still-warm body and stood up again. She hummed a little tune as she tucked the sheathed dagger into her _obi_ and left the room, closing the door behind her. Now she had another task to complete.

"_Miku hasn't come home..._" she mused out loud as she stepped into the living room and settled herself on the floor.

Now deadly silent, she slipped the dagger out of her _obi_ and unsheathed it again, carefully placing the _saya_ on the floor by her side. The blade glinted in the dull moonlight, almost hypnotizing her with its small spot of light. It was odd, the things one in her situation noticed, like the millipede crawling determinedly across the floor. More fascinating was the dot of light on the wall that was reflected off the blade in her hand. Yes, the oddest things did dawn upon those who were dying. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and...


	6. Silk Prison

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 5

"Silk Prison"

"_There. You're done,_" Saki declared, stepping back to admire her work.

Nicole had finally been wrestled into the purple off-the-shoulder kimono with the lavender trim. Fuming, she begrudgingly agreed that it was lighter and easier to move in than the kimono she had back home. It was funny... When she had gotten her kimono at her first anime convention, nobody had told her what it was. It was a _homongi_, as she subsequently found out at the seminar they had on kimono and how to wear them, etc. What was funny about it was that she had wound up wearing a kimono that should have been worn by a married woman... And now look at where she was... A snort of derisive laughter escaped her, confusing Saki, who opened her mouth to ask.

"Don't ask..." Nicole said curtly. "I just thought of something back home."

Saki, still unnerved by the other girl's earlier behavior, decided it was best to let the matter drop. Nicole's expression softened - Saki seemed genuinely friendly and she (Nicole) was in no position to pass up friends. That wasn't at all to say that she couldn't or wouldn't still be crazy or scary if it got her what she wanted, though. She smiled at the younger girl and bowed respectfully, saying "_Arigatou gozaimasu..._ For all your help..." Saki beamed at her once more and replied that it was nothing at all - she'd have done it for any new girl.

"Still, thanks for helping me out," continued Nicole, fiddling with her fingers. "I'm in a bit of a tough position here..."

"_We all are_," Saki reminded her. "_But we do what we have to do to make it through every day. That's our lot in life - it's not a lot, but it's our life._"

Nicole sighed in response and sort of drifted over to the door of the bath house, which had been left opened earlier to let some of the steam out. Saki followed her - she knew that one's first night in a place like this was tough and she wanted to be as supportive as she possibly could. The sounds of the street filtered back behind the establishment to the bath house, making Nicole shiver and Saki shrug. Nicole had never heard the sounds of a city's red-light district before, so everything there was new and quite disturbing to her. She was forcefully reminded of the scene in "Spirited Away" where Chihiro bangs herself on the head, exclaiming "I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!" then curls up beside the river, wishing it will all disappear. That was exactly what she wanted to do, curl up and pray to whatever god, gods, goddess, or goddesses might be listening. Maybe they would hear her and somehow take her home.

She knew she wouldn't be expected to work her first night... Or would she? She shuddered visibly at the thought - maybe it was like "Memoirs of a Geisha", where a girl's virginity was sold to the highest bidder... Then she reminded herself that the movie and the book it had been based on were works of fiction. She had read "Geisha, A Life" by Mineko Iwasaki and she knew that geisha were to look at, not to touch. _Oh that's right,_ she thought numbly. _We aren't geisha - we're just..._ She couldn't make her brain form any of the distasteful epithets for her new-found profession. It was just now starting to sink in that Miku really had left her there and wasn't coming back for her.

_I thought he loved me,_ she thought sadly.

You're being silly, she told herself - he had probably been planning to do that all along. But another brain elf poked her mind with the infamous q-tip, bringing up an alternative story. She couldn't see the reason for why he had done what he did, but surely he wouldn't have taken her home to meet his family if all he intended to do was... Again, she couldn't make her brain form the words. She dared not even think them - it would make the situation all too real, and all she wanted to do was sink into a dream world until she woke up and she was back home in her own bed.

"_We should be going back now,_" Saki said quietly, startling Nicole from her thoughts. "_You can room with Yumi and me - come on, I'll show you where it is._"

Nicole followed Saki mindlessly, not really knowing where she was headed and not particularly caring either - Saki could have been leading her straight into a cave full of rabid shrews and she wouldn't bat an eye. One turn led to another - the establishment had seemed smaller than this from the outside. She could vaguely hear Saki chattering about how the rooms used for business were separate from the rooms where the girls lived. Well that was good, she supposed - maybe she could just hide back there and nobody would notice her. Then reality hit her like a flying brick - she was a foreigner, so she would stick out like a boy in a girl's locker room.

_I guess this is karma getting me back for all the attention-getting stunts I did back home,_ she thought sardonically.

Normally, she loved to stick out of a crowd, to have people recognize her and look at her, but now she just wanted to melt into the wall or become invisible or something. The boys back home made her nervous enough - what was she supposed to do with men who would probably be twice her age or older? She nearly gagged at the thought - the young, handsome ones she could possibly deal with, but certainly not men old enough to be her father or grandfather... Yuck! She shook her head and walked straight into a door frame.

"_Nikooru-san, daijoubu ka?_" Saki asked in a concerned voice. "_Weren't you looking where you were going?_"

_Well thank you, Little Miss Obvious,_ Nicole snarled in her mind.

"I guess not," she admitted, shrugging - the feel of fabric sliding around on her shoulders was beginning to get on her nerves. "I guess I'm still a little shaken..."

"_I totally understand,_" Saki said sympathetically, patting the older girl's shoulder. "_But don't worry - you won't have to work for a few days at least. Himejima-sama is kind to new girls._"

"_Yeah, but to the rest of us..._" grumbled a girl with brownish-black hair and honey-colored eyes. "_Let's just say once your novelty wears off, you're just another cash cow for her. She's an old cow herself..._"

"_Moo!_" chimed in Saki, giggling.

Nicole stood there silently, listening to the girls conversing animatedly about their obvious dislike for the madam of the establishment and wondering how much of it was true and how much was exaggeration. Maybe they were just trying to scare her because she was new... No, that couldn't be the case - they weren't even talking to her! She shuffled her bare feet uncomfortably, scratching at the _tatami_ with one toenail like a chicken. Once again, a memory from back home came to her and brought tears to her eyes.

_They say I have A.D.D. They just don't understand... Oh, look! A chicken!_, she thought, smiling through her tears at the memory of her "chicken shirt" and baffling the other girls, who were watching her curiously.

"_Oh, I haven't introduced myself!_" exclaimed the honey-eyed girl. "_Atashi Tadakichi Toriko!_"

"_Hajimemashite, Tadakichi-san,_" Nicole replied automatically.

_Wait... Tadakichi?_ she thought... _Mr. Tadakichi... Chiyo-chan..._

Thinking about Azumanga Daioh, for the first time since the first time she had seen the graduation episode, was making her cry. With the eyes aside, Toriko looked just like a real life Tomo Takino - the one of the Azumanga group whom Nicole took great pride in mimicking almost exactly. Sniffling, she turned to Saki and was about to urge her to show her the room, but her lip trembled and she dissolved into tears again. Just like Chihiro, she crouched, sort of curled up, on the floor, wrapping her arms around her drawn-up knees and flinching at the pain this caused her twisted knee. She buried her face in the fabric of her kimono and let herself cry.

"_What's wrong with her?_" asked Toriko, pointing at Nicole. "_All I did was introduce myself!_"

She bent down next to Nicole and put a hand on her shoulder.

"_Nani yo?_" she asked. "_All I did was tell you my name! What made you cry?_"

"You wouldn't understand," mumbled Nicole, sniffling loudly and curling up tighter.

The Tomo look-alike opened her mouth to say something back but Saki stepped in.

"_Lay off, Toriko,_" she said tiredly. "_She's new and she doesn't feel too well. I think she just needs to get to sleep._"

_Yes! Yes!_ thought Nicole. _Sleep would be wonderful right now... Maybe I'll wake up and I'll be home..._

Toriko nodded, bade the two girls good night and retired to the room she shared with two other girls. Saki took Nicole's hand and guided her into the darkened room. Yumi's and her futon stayed spread out all day usually, but there was definitely room to spread out one more. Saki slid a panel on the wall aside and pulled out the spare futon, blanket, and pillow, holding them out to Nicole. The American girl looked at the assortment of bedding with her head tilted in a vaguely quizzical manner, as if it were a mildly interesting television show that she didn't quite understand.

"_You don't know how to set one of these up, do you?_" Saki said, crestfallen - then again, what did she expect from a _gaijin_ girl? "_Here, I'll show you._"

She spread out the _kakebuton_, the mattress-like part, on the only remaining floor space in the room - the far left corner - and spread the _shikibuton_ on top of it. Nicole watched in wonder - she could have figured it out easily enough, but how was that blanket, the _shikibuton_, supposed to keep her warm? At home, she slept under no less than seven blankets every night, thick enough that she could put them on the floor and sleep on them like a futon. Well, she still had her cape, which she noticed had been folded and placed near the space where her futon was being laid out. So Yumi and Saki had kept their word... That was good - maybe it meant she could trust them.

"I heard you and Tadakichi-san talking," Nicole said, bringing back the memory of her fifth grade teacher telling a classmate of hers not to be a 'stater of the obvious'.

"_It's not like you could have very well missed it,_" Saki responded casually. "_What about it?_"

"Himejima-sama... What's she like?" asked the American girl, trying not to sound overly curious. "Is she really that bad?"

"_Well compared to most places, this one is heaven for girls like us,_" the almost-eighteen-year-old said dully. "_We get decent food and we each have assigned nights off, but that doesn't change the bare facts. Himejima-sama owns us - she paid for each and every one of us._"

"Do you get paid?" Nicole asked.

Saki gave a grunt of dry laughter.

"_Oh that's really funny,_" she said sardonically. "_You heard Toriko-san - we're just cash cows. What use does a cow have for money?_"

"Do you at least get sick leave along with your nights off?" inquired Nicole, feeling more and more desolated by the second.

"_If by 'sick leave' you mean we don't have to work when we're on our periods, then yeah,_" replied Saki, using her fingers to make little quote marks when she said 'sick leave' and looking away consideringly. "_Well, if there's heavy business, like somebody important, we might have to work, but not all the way._"

Nicole almost gagged at the imagery in her head.

"Do you ever get to go out?" she croaked.

"_Well, we can go to the courtyard out back,_" said Saki. "_But out front? Absolutely not! I mean, if we don't have any money, what use is there in going out to the market? Anyway, we're easy to identify even though Himejima-sama doesn't have us branded. The traders would love to pick us up and re-sell us for a higher price. From what I hear, they get some sick, twisted pleasure out of 'breaking' a 'spoiled' woman like one of us._"

Nicole swallowed hard. She touched the off-the shoulder collar of her kimono and shuddered. A regular kimono was restraining enough and even though this one allowed for more freedom of movement... Now it just felt uncomfortable and very restrictive. She thought vaguely back to her first impression of the establishment - everything was so elegant, silk calligraphy paintings hanging on the walls, silk cushions on the floor, even the _noren_ curtain moved like it was made of silk. She was reminded of a line in the Disney animated version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". It was when Frollo said to Esmerelda "You've chosen a magnificent prison, but it is a prison nonetheless, and Gypsies don't do well inside stone walls." Well the walls here weren't even made of hard wood and they were draped with silk.

_Well I don't do well inside any walls,_ thought Nicole.

Again, irony stared her in the face. Back home, most of the time all she wanted to do was stay holed up in her room - sometimes she would stay in there for days, not even coming out for meals. But it was her own choice to stay there - most of the time, she didn't want human interaction. When she did, it was either with her friends from anime club or Ashley - most other people just made her angry. But again, that was her own choice to be so solitary and reclusive - that was just the way things were. Now she had no choices - well, she did, but she didn't like thinking of the alternative. She wanted to get home and she had to live to do that, no matter what.

"It's a prison, this is," Nicole said quietly, unconsciously taking on a soft British accent - she spent too much time reading Harry Potter out loud and doing the voices of the characters. "It 'ent got bars 'er anythin' like that, but 's a prison jus' th' same."

Saki stared at the American girl - what next? She knew Nicole could growl and sound quite intimidating, that she could be incredibly loud if she wanted to, had an attitude, and was very modest, but changing her voice completely? What Nicole's voice had actually sounded like was a slight British accent with a bit of Georgia/Southern twang. It would have sounded odd to just about anyone's ears, not just Saki's. But Nicole was just, as a friend had put it, "doin' what Nicole does" - she could change her voice at will. She wasn't a ventriloquist or anything - she couldn't throw her voice, but she could project it at different levels, change her accent, and imitate voices from animated television shows.

"_Um, excuse me for asking, but, what in the heck was that?_" Saki blurted out finally.

"I can change my voice," Nicole replied nonchalantly. "Sometimes it just changes on its own to suit my mood."

"_Uh-huh..._" said Saki, still looking at Nicole as though she had just grown a tail. "_Congratulations..._"

She didn't know what else to say! What were you supposed to say to somebody when they revealed something strange, almost unnatural about themselves? But Nicole shrugged and said, in a very Southern-sounding voice, "Aww... 't's nuthin'." Saki gave her another strange look, but shrugged her own shoulders and tried hard to brush it off. There were no two ways about it - this girl that Himejima-sama had taken on had to be the strangest person Saki had ever encountered. And that was even counting some of her clients and her insane second cousin.

"So, when's it lights-out for the girls who don't have... erm... work?" asked Nicole, trying to change the subject. "Speakin' of which, is there an oil lamp or a candle in here? I can see in the dark, but this is kinda strainin' my eyes."

"_Oh heavens, no!_" exclaimed Saki. "_We aren't allowed to have anything flammable in our rooms, especially not oil lamps. We used to be able to, but one of the girls who couldn't take it anymore killed herself by drinking lamp oil. After that, no candles, no lamps, no nothing. In the spring and summer, we take some of the paper off the shoji and make windows. In the winter, like it is right now, we just have dark after the sun goes down._"

"Well that sucks," commented Nicole.

"_Nani yo?_" asked Saki, unfamiliar with Nicole's terminology.

"It means it stinks, it's not good, not fun, et cetera," explained Nicole.

"_Oh,_" said Saki, not sure what to say next.

-- Back out in the main market --

Miku was still wandering aimlessly around the market, taking in the shop fronts in the moonlight. Thoughts of all kinds were screaming through his head. Part of him wanted to go home, curl up, and never come out again, but the other part of him never wanted to see that house again. It was enough to make his head hurt very badly. He was walking past all the booths and stalls and shops that he had stopped at with Nicole. That was enough to make his heart hurt even worse. He stopped in front of the stall that had those beautiful crystal-like candies - he had five hundred yen on him... What could it hurt to buy a box of them for his little sisters? It might make him feel better.

"_Face it, Hasegawa,_" he said out loud to himself. "_There's nothing in this world that can make you feel better right now._"

That wasn't true - what he wanted more than anything else was to go back to that place, throw the money on the floor, and get Nicole out of there. Damned be the consequences - if he did that, he could die happy right at that moment. That thought raised two very important issues in his mind. What if he did go back for Nicole? It wasn't too late to turn around and go back to the red-light district... But then his sisters' faces appeared in his mind - they were so hungry and so sad. How could he show up empty-handed when he had to provide for his mother and sisters?

The other issue was the last part of the thought - 'he could die happy right at that moment'. That was also an option - if he couldn't reverse what he had done, there was no need to live with the shame. He stared at the beautiful _tanto_ that Nicole had been admiring - it was visibly sharp and had a lovely ebony _saya_. His hand slipped itself into the front panel of his _gi_ and he fingered the small money bag. He smiled bemusedly - yes, this was his way out. Just a few yen for the dagger, then he could give the rest to his family. A hunting trip would be the perfect cover. Before he could stop himself, he was handing five yen over to the man behind the display, accepting the dagger from the man, and tucking it into the waist tie of his _hakama_. With a vague smile still on his lips and a rather dazed look in his topaz-colored eyes, he turned and started back down the road that would take him home.

The walk seemed to take no time at all, but at the same time, each step seemed so slow. He was unaware of the people who looked at him strangely as he weaved through the crowd on unsteady legs. Most of them probably thought he was very drunk, said the little elf at the back of his brain, but he didn't care. In fact, he welcomed it - they would give him a wide berth and he would be able to get home faster. Looking around blearily, he forgot to watch where he was going and walked straight into a rather portly older woman. He muttered an apology and shook his head, continuing on his way. Very soon, he was on the road that would take him out of Edo and back to his village.

Finally, he was ambling up the path to his small house and his mind snapped back with a vengeance. The door was standing open and the lamp was not lit. Something had to be amiss, he thought, noting the painful feeling in his stomach that told him something was more than amiss - it was something terribly wrong. Cautiously, he stepped into the house and silently slid his sandals off. There was a terrible smell in the house - the smell of fresh blood. Forgetting his own problems, he ran out into the living room and saw...

"_Okaa-san! Okaa-san! No!_" he cried, falling on his knees beside his mother's body. "_Okaa-san, you can't be gone... You're just... knocked out... Please 'kaa-san, get up..._"

He sounded like a lost child and in a way, though physically he was now a man, he was. Swallowing hard, he took hold of his mother's shoulders and pulled her up, trying to help her sit up. It was no use - her head dropped limply on her chest and her body was literally dead weight. Miku's expression was torn between terror, grief, and terrible shock. He cradled his mother's body as she had done for him when he was sick and took hold of her hand. It was cold as ice, but still limp. His eyes widened, filling with tears that clouded his vision but refused to fall. Finally, he tilted his mother's face up to his - her face's expression wasn't quite peaceful, but it looked like whatever had happened had been quick. Then he saw the bloody hole in his mother's chest and his father's knife lying near her other hand.

Swallowing hard, he picked her up and held her in his arms, laying her on his futon. He had to check the rest of the house - where were his sisters? Were they safe? Were they even alive? He checked the room that his mother and sisters had shared since Miku's father had disappeared in the chaos of the revolution. The family had never received word of what might have happened to him. His two older brothers, who had left to fight along with their father, had also vanished in the melee. But that thought left his mind as he shut the door to that room, not thinking or feeling much of anything at that point.

Then a sour thought entered his head - he should at least check on the old pig. Steeling himself against what he might see, he closed his eyes and slid the door open, taking a careful step in. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and cautiously opened his eyes. There was the old man, covered by a bloodstained blanket, his eyes frozen open in a terrified stare. Out of morbid curiosity and the need to know what had happened, Miku peeled the blanket back. The body was obviously still limp, because the three stab wounds in his chest were wet with blood and there was fresh blood staining the futon he lay on. Miku's stomach clenched and he ran from the room, then out the door. He barely made it to the back of the house, where he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

"_Okaa-san... Why?_" he whispered weakly. "_What have you done?_"

He took a few weak steps to the side and fell on his knees, clutching at his stomach with one hand and pressing the other over his mouth to keep from being sick again. Breathing hard, he squeezed his eyes shut - he couldn't believe what he had come home to find. Had his mother really... murdered his grandfather? There had been no sign of a struggle in the grandfather's room, except for the look of terror in his dead eyes. She must have taken the knife to him when he was sleeping - the old bastard slept most of the time anyway. It wasn't so much his grandfather's death that shocked him - he had been waiting for the old man to croak for a long time. Miku shook his head - it was just... bizzare. He could never imagine anyone in his family taking a life, least of all his mother or sisters. But his mother, of all people, had put an end to the old tyrant's reign.

"_What have I done?_" Miku asked himself out loud.

Somehow, he felt the whole mess was his fault. His mind told him that if he had never brought Nicole home, he never would have gotten mixed up in that horrible business. But if he had found her and just left her there, his heart was telling him that she would have died out there - it would have been inhuman to leave her. But what he had just done had been an inhuman act as well - he had _sold_ another human being, on top of that, one who trusted him! But it wasn't even the fact that he had seen something special in Nicole and had genuinely liked her. Even if the two of them had hit it off like a bobcat and a pit bull, he never would have thought to do something like that.

His feelings were beyond tears - he felt hollow, empty inside. He swallowed hard and his mind told him to do whatever he had to do to find his sisters. His heart agreed and he pushed himself off the ground and got to his feet, biting his lip as he half-heartedly brushed the dust from his _hakama_. There was the basic question in his mind - Where were his sisters? - but there were only a few logical answers to it. He just had to ask a few of the neighbors if they had seen the village's Trio of Terror - Okon, Omasu, and Michiko. The girls were always getting into mischief, playing "ninja" around people's houses and chasing each other all over creation. Their village was small and just about everybody knew just about everybody else - someone had to have seen them, he reasoned.

"_What am I going to tell them?_" he asked himself miserably.

He pushed that question out of his mind and stepped carefully around the pool of sick on the ground. Squaring his shoulders resolutely, he headed out to find his sisters. His first stop was the home of the elderly couple next door - they had always acted as surrogate grandparents for Okon and Omasu, and Miku as well. This was just as well, as the Hasegawa brood got along with their grandfather about as well as a trio of monkeys got along with an angry dog. The resulting mutual dislike had hung over the house for years like an old dead goose. _Where had that thought come from?_ Miku asked himself, shaking his head - it sounded like something Nicole would say.

Shrugging his shoulders, he approached the elderly couple's front door and knocked on it quietly, trying not to let himself shiver visibly. It was colder than usual tonight and his clothes were in less-than-weather-appropriate condition. A few moments went by, in which Miku realized he had run out barefoot again. He bit his lip and sort of stood one foot on top of the other, trying to keep them both warm - that didn't work. Another minute went by and then a lamp turned on in the elderly couple's house, creating a ball of light in the silhouette of the _shoji_. The light ball moved through the house, supported by a shadow that was rather bent-looking.

"_Ah, Mii-chan, what brings you around tonight?_" asked Kawazoe Ayumi, her dark eyes lighting up and crinkling happily around the edges. Then she noticed the serious look on Miku's face. "_Is something wrong?_"

"_Konbanwa, Obaa-san,_" replied Miku, dodging the question momentarily and trying to seem casual. "_Have you seen the Trio lately?_"

The surrogate grandmother frowned, the lines in her face defining themselves as they were shadowed in the light of the lamp she held in her knobbly hand.

"_Iie, Mii-chan... But come in,_" she told him.

"_Oh, gomen nasai, Obaa-san,_" Miku said quickly, bowing respectfully. "_If you haven't seen them I really do need to go. I have to find them._"

Kawazoe-san's frown deepened, but she saw the look in her almost-grandson's eyes and knew that whatever was going on, the matter was out of her hands.

"_I don't like what I'm hearing, but you do what you have to do,_" she said firmly.

"_Domo arigatou gozaimasu, Obaa-san_," Miku said gratefully, bowing again. "_I really must be going..._"

Kawazoe-san nodded and Miku swallowed hard and turned away.

"_The gods be with you, Miku,_" she said quietly, waiting until the young man was out of her sight before closing the door and going back into the living room of her house.

----

"_What was that all about, Ayumi?_" her husband asked, looking up from his reading and frowning. "_Who was it?_"

"_It was Miku, Kazuma,_" Ayumi said worriedly. "_He seemed very upset. I've never seen him like this before - I think something's wrong._"

Kazuma furrowed his brow.

"_Like what?_" he inquired, concerned about the young man he saw as a grandson. "_Like physically sick or something bothering him?_"

"_I think something's happened - he wasn't himself, looked like he'd seen a ghost,_" replied Ayumi, fidgeting with her hands. "_He can't find his sisters either._"

"_This late at night? What are they doing out in the first place?_" asked Kazuma, now agitated and worried. "_You're right, koishii. I think something's wrong. Probably something happened at home. Wouldn't surprise me if the old goat's gone too far and somebody's snapped on him._"

Ayumi nodded and Kazuma stood up, putting his reading material aside, not knowing how right he was - they were going to go over to that house and get to the bottom of whatever was going on.

----

Miku was now bordering on panic - he had visited every house on his family's row and no one had seen hide nor hair of either of his sisters.

----

**Back In 2006**

The fire department and a couple of sheriff's deputies had showed up by then. The firefighters were scouring the campus, looking for what had caused the disturbance and the deputies were trying to talk to the school administration. Ms. Kirkpatrick was trying to explain that she could not give any information until they were allowed back on campus. The parents of the missing student, who were also Ashley's legal guardians, would have to be contacted first, she insisted. She was also trying to convince one of the firemen to let some of the faculty back on campus to start calling parents. Unable to get any information out of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, one of the sheriff's deputies turned to the dean of students.

"I can give you no more information than Ms. Kirkpatrick can," he said plainly. "It would be against school policy to give students' personal information to outside parties without a parent's or guardian's consent."

Ashley's tears had stopped, a long time after she had cried herself into silence, still leaning on Kirsten. Natalia looked stricken, a major reaction from her, as she looked on helplessly, unable to help her friend. Daniel stood about awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, not really knowing what to do. Finally, he swallowed hard, mumbled something to excuse himself, and went over to talk to Keith and Patrick. Natalia didn't even notice his absence - she was too concerned with trying to bring Ashley out of the shocked stupor she had sunk into.

"Ashley, come on!" she persisted, shaking her friend's shoulder. "There are people here who need to talk to you!"

Ashley shook her head 'no'.

"Who needs to talk to her?" asked Kirsten, her knees nearly buckling from Ashley leaning so heavily against her - it wasn't that Ashley was particularly heavy; it was just that she was quickly becoming dead weight.

Natalia was about to answer when Keith interrupted.

"Hey, Ashley..." he said quietly. "They've found her stuff. I thought you might want to take it."

Ashley pushed herself up off of Kirsten and forced her legs, usually so strong from swimming, to support her weight in an uneasy fashion. She looked around rather dazedly and saw a sheriff's deputy talking to a freshman she didn't know - he was small and looked to be Indian by descent. The sheriff's deputy was holding an all-too-familiar dirty, faded lavender messenger bag, complete with the broken length-adjuster-thing. Miraculously, it was mostly dry. The freshman boy shrugged his shoulders - he didn't know anything about the bag or its contents. Ashley swallowed hard and made herself walk over to the deputy and the freshman.

"That's Nicole's stuff," she said in a hollow voice, pointing at the bag. "Let me have it. I'll take it back to her parents."

"Well, Miss, we're going to have to take this bag and it's contents and look them over," said the deputy.

Another deputy stepped in.

"Tom, we don't have a warrant to search anything," he said, his arms folded across his chest. "Hell, we don't even have half an idea of what happened here. Get the facts first."

Tom nodded and handed the dirty lavender bag to Ashley, who took it with shaking hands. She walked over to a bench, followed by Natalia and Kirsten, and set the bag down on her lap as she sat down. The inside of Nicole's purse was a wreck, as it always was. Today, there was an overdue library book, a yellow fountain pen, two manga, and a couple of books that Nicole had been using to teach herself Japanese. Cluttering the bottom was a set of drawing pencils, a kneadable eraser, a package of paper blending stumps, and probably half the makeup Nicole owned. Hey, thought Ashley - that's _my_ MAC gel mascara!

_I've been looking for that for two weeks!_ she thought. _I'd feel really bad taking it back now..._

Ashley's best guy friend, Brandon, sidled up carefully and sat down on the bench next to her. Everyone knew he was flamingly gay - Ashley was just coming to terms with that - but he slid his arm around her shoulders. He didn't know how to react, just like everybody else. What was he supposed to say to her? When her parents had died, it had been almost easy to say "I'm sorry" - that was just what you said when somebody died. But what were you supposed to say when somebody just disappeared in front of everyone? Brandon bit his lip, then opened his mouth to say something - at first only a choking noise made it out.

"Um... Er... Ah... Uh, Ashley?" he asked haltingly, as though his grasp of the English language had weakened significantly in the space of a few seconds. "I... I'm... I just... Well... Um... Ashley... I don't know how to say this, but... Oh dammit - I'm just going to say I'm sorry!"

"I know..." said Ashley, not sure how she was managing to make her voice work. "Thank you... I don't know what to say either... I mean... She's my best friend - always has been..."

"Ashley," said Daniel, who had drifted back over to hover around his girlfriend. "I'm sorry..."

And he clammed up, stuffing his hands in his pockets again and not saying another word.

"I miss Nicole," whispered Ashley. "And she hasn't even been... for more than a few hours..."

She couldn't make her brain or her mouth form the taboo word - gone.


	7. Piercing Scream

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 6

"Piercing Scream"

Thoroughly convinced that something was wrong, Ayumi and Kazuma Kawazoe, Miku's surrogate grandparents, got up and headed next door. The door was standing open and they noticed that all the sandals except for one pair were gone from the entryway. So that was why Miku had been sort of dancing about when she answered the door, Ayumi thought - he had run out without his sandals. Whatever was wrong had to be very serious, because normally Miku was a clear-thinking young man with his head straight on his shoulders - he almost never forgot anything.

Holding on to her husband's arm, Ayumi stepped up into the living room, wondering why in the world the lamp was not on at this time of night. Kazuma frowned - his eyesight and his hearing might be failing him, but he still had as sharp a sense of smell as he had always had. His bad knee wobbled a little - he remembered what it was like being a soldier. And he was remembering this because of what he smelled. It smelled horribly like blood. He had been examining the unlit oil lamp with his back to the room, but he spun around like a dervish when he heard his wife scream.

"_Oh my gods!_" screamed Ayumi, holding her hand over her heart. "_Chizuko-san!_"

"_No wonder Miku was in a hurry,_" Kazuma said quietly, his mind already working hard on the case. "_He had to leave his..._"

"_Kazuma, no! You can't possibly think Miku did this!_" cried his wife.

"_I'm just saying it looks an awful lot like that's what happened,_" Kazuma said gravely.

Ayumi shook her head vehemently.

"_Listen to yourself!_" she chided her husband passionately. "_We both know him better than that. There's no way in heaven, hell, or anywhere in between that Miku did this._"

Kazuma shook his head to clear it and grunted to his wife that she was right and he didn't know what he was thinking. His mind had to be twisting on itself, to think that Miku would do such a thing. Ayumi had gone back to their house to find a white kimono to dress Chizuko in for burial. Kazuma checked the room that had the bowl and chopsticks outside it and very nearly became quite ill. Then he remembered - that morning, just this morning, he had heard, along with everyone else within a couple of kilometers, Chizuko arguing with her father-in-law. Something about a girl Miku had brought home - very bad business, it turned out to be.

The elderly man shuddered - he hated to think what had actually become of the poor thing. All of a sudden, the puzzle completed itself. Chizuko had been forced to comply with the old man's wishes and that had been the ultimate disgrace to herself and the family. The old man was the cause of the problem, so she got jolly well rid of him and ended her own life in the honorable way. Kazuma bowed his head - what Miku had come home to... He couldn't stand the thought of it! But he pushed thought out of his mind as he shuffled back to his house to find something to lay the old man out in. It wouldn't do not to give the head of the family a decent burial, even if he was a rotten old bastard.

-- --

----

Miku had finally shaken himself and figured out where his two little sisters were - obviously they were with his mother's closest friend, Nakamura Miharu. He gave himself another mental shake and straightened his shoulders before the neighbors began to talk . After all, it was getting late, already well past dark, and there he was, standing in the middle of the path talking to himself. Once more, he shook his head to clear it and started towards Nakamura-san's house, in the center of the village. A sigh escaped his lips - what was he going to tell Okon and Omasu? Before he could answer his own question, he walked straight into the door frame of Nakamura-san's house.

"_Baka,_" he said to himself, shaking his head as he stepped back and knocked in a civilized manner - it seemed everyone was being very formal tonight.

"_I'm coming, I'm coming!_" called a woman's voice - in a moment, the door slid open a little bit and a woman who looked as if she were maybe in her early twenties, Nakamura Miharu, appeared. "_Oh! Mii-chan!_"

Miku wasn't fooled for a second by the false cheeriness in her voice - it wasn't humanly possible for a person with three very active little girls under one roof to be that cheerful this late at night.

"_Gomen nasai... I'm sorry for bothering you so late, but this is sort of an emergency,_" Miku said in a rush, bowing at the end. "_I need to know - are my sisters here?_"

Miharu slid the door all the way open, nodding gravely.

"_Please come in,_" she said softly, ushering Miku into her living room and checking to make sure the little girls weren't within earshot. "_I'm not going to play dumb or tell you white lies..._"

"_Matte kudasai!_" Miku interjected, his voice sounding hoarse and desperate. "_My okaa-san... My ojii-san... They're both---_"

"_I know,_" Miharu cut in. "_Your mother told me all about it this afternoon._

Miku opened his mouth to ask questions, but Miharu cut him off again and began a long, painful, and arduous explanation. Unable to do anything but comply with her father-in-law's wishes, Chizuko felt she had disgraced herself by not trying harder. She had intended to take her own life first, but she thought of the little girls and had brought them to Miharu's house to be cared for. Instead of killing herself alone, she wanted to take down the old man who had disgraced the Hasegawa family's name with what he had done. It wasn't his place to decide that girl's fate - she knew things like that happened all the time, but that didn't mean she had resigned herself to it. She wanted to fight the practice of slavery, but as a woman, was unable to do so. So she saw justice done in the old way - the old man had destroyed the family honor, so it was her duty as a widow faithful to her husband's family to take him out. At least, that's the way she saw it.

"_I'm sorry that she's gone, but I'm glad for what she did,_" the young mother said savagely."_That old man was a disgusting, horrible old pig and after what he did, he deserved to die - brutally._"

Miku's mouth hung open and there was a hollow, deadened look in his eyes.

"_I'll do it too..._" he said in a choking voice, standing up and looking around dazedly. "_I don't want to live anymore after what I've done! Let me at a knife and I'll take care of it right now!_"

"_You'll do no such thing!_" roared Miharu, getting to her feet as well. "_What about your little sisters? You're responsible for them now! They don't even know what's happened! And who's going to tell them? Certainly not me! If you're gone too, they won't have anything to live for!_"

"_You can take care of them!_" Miku yelled back, gesturing angrily at her. "_That's why my okaa-san left them here, right?_"

Miharu, red in the face and clenching her teeth, marched up to Miku, reared her hand back and slapped him smartly across his face.

"_HASEGAWA MIKU, YOU GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF AND I MEAN NOW!_" she bellowed, watching Miku press his hand to his cheek.

Miku opened his mouth to argue, or fight back, or do something, but his voice cut itself off when he heard a little voice beside him.

"_Miku-'niichan, where'th 'kaa-san?_" Omasu lisped softly, tugging on the fabric of Miku's _hakama_. "_When'th she comin' back? I wanna go home!_"

Okon slowly sidled over to her brother, looking up at him through her black bangs.

"_She is coming back, right?_" she asked, her little voice shaking.

Miku let out all the air of a deep breath he didn't even notice he had drawn in and his shoulders fell, giving him the defeated look of a kicked dog. He sank to his knees and pulled his little sisters into his arms - he didn't know what to tell them or how. How was he supposed to explain to a six-year-old and an eight-year-old that, for the sake of the family honor, their mother had killed their grandfather and then taken her own life? For the first time since he had stumbled into the terrible scene, tears formed in his eyes. Little drops made dark wet spots on his little sisters' kimono.

"_Okon... Omasu... Okaa-san has gone to be with Otou-chan..._" he said softly, trying to keep his voice strong for them and just barely succeeding. "_Do you understand?_"

"_She'th not comin' back?_" asked Omasu, taking hold of her brother's _gi_ with one hand and chewing on the index finger of the other, looking up at him with her big blue eyes.

"_What happened, 'nii-chan?_" asked Okon, tugging nervously on a lock of her black hair.

Miku sighed again.

"_I'll explain it when you're older,_" he said wearily, the weight of the day's events bearing down on his shoulders. "_For now, just stay with your onii-chan... We'll figure everything out in the morning._"

Okon and Omasu began to cry, clinging to their brother, who just held them and started crying himself.

"_Miku, we have a spare room for you and the girls,_" Miharu said after letting them cry it out. "_You all need to sleep._"

Miku nodded but didn't look up.

"_I'll go set out a futon,_" Miharu said softly.

In about five minutes, she reappeared in the living room to see Miku picking up both girls and getting to his feet.

"_Domo arigato gozaimasu_," he whispered, his voice rough from crying as he nodded in lieu of bowing.

----

----

It was around ten at night and Nicole had been dressed, made up, hair-done, and everything. She was following Saki and Toriko to a room nearer to the front of the establishment - one that was actually lit with a lamp. It was time for her to be presented to Himejima-sama. Nicole was fidgeting nervously with her hands - she hated knowing that people were evaluating her. She tried to pull the kimono up so it rested higher on her shoulders, remembering her refusal to go about looking like her clothes were about to fall off. As the three girls went down yet another hallway, Nicole began to hear noises coming from further up the hall. She was about to ask but then remembered where she was and closed her mouth, sickened by the embarrassing sounds.

"_Sounds like Yumi's got a good one,_" Toriko commented snidely as a sort of howl sounded off in a nearby room. "_Some girls have all the luck._"

Nicole felt like being sick yet again and her knees wobbled a bit. Being a normal - well, no, not normal - American eighteen-year-old in the year 2006, she knew what they were talking about. But she wished she didn't - she knew she read some pretty explicit fan fictions back home and had watched a yaoi or two, but she wanted to keep her innocence physically. Her philosophy was "the less people know about my mind, the better". Now the walls that had sheltered her for all of her life were crashing down around her and she was powerless to stop the fall. All she could do was keep walking on her unsteady feet and try to block out the noises as much as she could. Before she knew it, she was standing in a room that was, compared to her room with the girls, blindingly brightly lit - she didn't recognize it as the front room of the establishment.

"_Himejima-sama!_" called Saki, her voice soft and respectful. "_We got the new girl clean and dressed. Would you like to see her now?_"

The madam seemed to glide across the _tatami_ towards the three girls. Saki and Toriko stepped back, bowing submissively and Nicole was left on her own, shivering from fear and the cold wind blowing in the door. Himejima-sama circled her like a panther circles its prey, looking her up, down, and all around with a critical eye. Nicole watched her face carefully, though she tried not to make it obvious that she was staring. Himejima-sama's brow furrowed as she noticed that the silvery white _obi_, tied in the front, was tied a bit too loosely. Sure the girls were supposed to be alluring, but in _her_ establishment, they were more than just common sluts - her girls were properly trained in manners and dress and things like that.

"_That obi is too loose..._" she said in a low voice. "_Who tied it?_"

Nicole, now visibly quaking on her feet, raised her hand.

"_Now what was your name again, dear?_" asked the elegantly-dressed, imposing-looking madam.

"N-nicole Barrington, ma'am," Nicole stuttered, bowing ridiculously low. "_Hajimemashi---_"

"_Hai, hai, I know. 'Hajimemashite',_" Himejima-sama said dismissively, gesturing to further her point. "_Well I see you at least have some manners._"

"_Domo arigato, _ma'am," replied Nicole, trying to keep her voice from shaking as she bowed again. "I try..."

Himejima-sama pursed her lips and her brows knitted together consideringly.

"_So... What do you think, Himejima-sama?_" Saki asked timidly, gesturing at Nicole, who bowed yet again.

The madam looked Nicole over once more.

"_With the obi aside - you will learn to tie that, dear - she passes inspection,_" she said smoothly. She looked back at Saki and Toriko. "_You may take her back to your room and get her into a sleeping yukata._"

Saki and Toriko took Nicole's hands and were about to do exactly that when a man stepped over the threshold of Himejima-sama's establishment. They turned around and pulled Nicole over to the table they had been sitting at earlier and sat there prettily, giggling politely and flirting with their eyes. Nicole was frozen in fear and thought she might be about to get violently sick. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering audibly and cracked her knuckles nervously. The man looked over at her, hearing the loud popping sound.

"_Her,_" he said, pointing at Nicole. "_How much for a night with her?_"

Himejima-sama followed his gesture and looked at Nicole, who looked absolutely petrified.

"_Gomen nasai, sir,_" she said quietly, but firmly. "_She is a very new arrival and I do not require my new girls to work on their first days._"

"_But she's a foreigner!_" the man persisted. "_So exotic! I'll pay double what you usually charge!_"

He turned to his friend and said "_Come on, man! Just one night. You haven't gotten any for ages!_"

"_Oh fine, but just to shut you up,_" the friend conceded. "_But you said you're paying and I'm holding you to it!_"

The madam's eyes narrowed and she took another cursory look at Nicole, then broke into the young men's conversation.

"_Onegai, sir, allow me to speak to her first,_" she said firmly to the one making the request, gesturing to Nicole with one hand and turning towards the back of the establishment.

"_What's gonna happen to me?_" Nicole asked in a frightened, panicked voice, her facial expression desperate.

"_Please control yourself, Nikooru-chan!_" scolded Himejima-sama. "_You may as well get used to this. I'll let you have the night off tomorrow._"

"Please, ma'am!" cried Nicole. "I've never been with a man before! I wanted my first time to be with the one I loved! As in, MARRIED TO!"

"_Don't you take that tone with me,_" the madam shot back, her voice dangerously quiet. "_Now it's not your place to decide that. That man is the son of a wealthy merchant. It's not good for business to turn him away._"

Nicole opened her mouth to protest again, but the madam loomed over her and made her feel very small and feeble.

"What do I do?" she asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

"_Whatever he wants you to,_" snapped Himejima-sama. "_Now go._"

Nicole sort of shuffled back out to the brightly-lit room, trying to pull her kimono up onto her shoulders. For the first time, she was able to get a good look at who she was dealing with. It turned out that it was a group of four men and they seemed awfully familiar. One of them was very tall and had spiky brown hair that Nicole could swear belonged to Sanosuke Sagara - but that was impossible! Sano wouldn't even be ten years old. The other two, who looked rather tipsy, were eyeing Saki and Toriko with knowing grins. Saki rolled her eyes when they weren't looking. However, the fourth man - Nicole knew she had seen him before. It had to be him.

He was tall, with raven-black hair that fell messily over one eye. Nicole couldn't see his eyes very well, but she could tell they were a dark, espresso-brown color. His shoulders were strong and he kept them straight and his head up high - even if he did look a little tipsy himself tonight. Then Nicole could have slapped herself as a realization dawned upon her. As if the odd uniforms hadn't given the whole group away when she first saw them. Only now was it starting to sink in - a few members of the Sekihoutai were out for a night on the town. Nicole's mouth fell open, but she couldn't speak. Here he was, her dream come true, but he would never see her as more than an object for personal pleasure.

"_Nikooru-chan, please escort Sagara-san to the large private room in the back,_" Himejima-sama said in a silky voice - silk soaked in gentle venom. Nicole shuffled forward and gestured to Sagara to follow her. "_And look sharp about it!_"

Nicole couldn't look at the man following her to the large private room they were heading for. She had seen inside of it (the door had been left halfway open) while she was walking with Saki and Toriko - it really was big and luxurious. The futon was extra large and there were large square pillows piled around it. The lamp was kept at a very low level, casting seductive shadows over everything in the room like curtains. Nicole swallowed hard as she she slid the door the rest of the way open and ushered Sagara inside. Her lip trembled as she shuffled over to the futon and sat gingerly on one corner. She tried not to look as Sagara stripped out of his vest and shirt.

The tall man knelt in front of Nicole and reached out to touch her face - he had never been with a foreigner before.

"Um... I guess... Well... I..." was all Nicole was able to get out before she broke down in tears. "I don't want to do this! I want to go home! I want my mom!"

Souzou Sagara pulled his hand back, completely poleaxed - the sake had long since left his mind. It was true what his friend Reichi had said - it really had been a long time since he had "gotten any". He had been looking forward to the feel of a woman's soft curves beneath his body. But the sobbing creature in front of him was barely more than a girl, with her face buried in the sleeve of her kimono and her whole body shaking. It was obvious she had never been with a man before and that she didn't want to now. He tried to shake the thoughts out of his mind - it was just her job and that was that.

Something in his heart told him that what he was doing was wrong as he wrapped strong arms around the girl's body, pulling her close to him. Nicole cried out in surprise and fear and started trying to push him away, or struggle out of his grip - she wasn't giving her most precious gift to him if all she was to him was a common hooker. How she wished things had been different! She wished that it had been him who had found her, just like in her dreams, and that he had taken care of her like he had in her stories back home.

"_Relax..._" he whispered, tightening his grip and immobilizing her so that he could pull her up and let his breath tickle her ear. "_Just lay back... You might enjoy it._"

"No, no, no," Nicole was whispering to herself, still trying to squirm away from him. "No, no, no, no, no!"

Souzou frowned and tried a different approach, the forceful approach - he laid her back on the futon and pinned her shoulders with his strong grip.

"_Come on, let's get this over with,_" he growled, wanting to just get on with it. "_I came here for a good night and I intend to have it._"

Nicole stopped struggling and looked up at him with wide eyes, puffy, red, and full of tears, whimpering as if he had hit her - she pressed her legs together as tight as she could, still not giving up her fight.

"Please... don't do this!" she begged, shaking from fear in his grip. "Souzou... Don't..."

Souzou released her and sat up quickly.

"_How did you know my name?_" he demanded.

"It's... complicated..." Nicole said lamely. "I can't explain it..."

She curled up into a ball on her side, facing away from him. Desire, confusion, and a twinge of pity warred against each other in Souzou's mind. Even if the circumstances were strange, he shouldn't let that get in the way of his night, not after all Reichi had paid for it. Nicole continued to sob and shudder, crying for her mother and wishing she was back home, safe in her own bed with the Souzou she loved gazing at her from the computer screen. Pity won in Souzou's mental battle and he reached out a gentle hand to touch the girl's shoulder. She flinched and curled up tighter, almost hyperventilating.

"_It's all right... Calm down,_" Souzou said softly, stroking the girl's bare shoulder and loving the feel of her soft, warm skin against his sword-callused hand - he pushed that thought out of his head and took the shaking girl in his arms again. "_Shh... Shh... I'm not going to hurt you... Look at me... Onegaisuru._"

Nicole shook her head and Souzou, wondering where in the world his sensible mind was, gently turned her in his arms so that her body was tilted towards his, cradling her like a child.

"_Come on,_" he persisted, trying to get her to uncurl herself. "_I promise... I won't hurt you._"

Nicole finally went limp in his arms, still sobbing quietly and still shaking with fine tremors that made her lips quiver as she tried to stare straight through his chest. Souzou carefully took her chin in a firm but gentle grip, turning her head and tilting her face up to his. The girl's teeth were chattering audibly and she had pulled her arms up in a defensive block, still trying to keep him from touching her. Unable to stand seeing her that way any longer, Souzou shifted her up closer to him and, though she kept trying to push him away, tenderly brought his lips down on hers. He wanted to slip his tongue into her mouth and claim it as his, but something inside of his heart restrained him, keeping the kiss soft and chaste.

"_Relax,_" he said softly, his voice coming from deep in his chest.

It was then that he realized, no matter how much he desired a woman that night, he just couldn't bring himself to touch the girl in his arms. Something about her made him stop - it was as if God's hand was on his shoulder, restraining him from staining this young girl's purity. Nicole was whimpering again, feeling very uncomfortable as she was pressed so close to this man's bare chest. Souzou stroked her face, trailing his fingers over her cheek, then threading them into her hair and removing the beaded band that held her mane of auburn waves back. The girl started shaking again, so afraid that he was going to take her.

"Let me go..." she sobbed, her voice a harsh whisper. "Please... I don't even know what to do! I'm not experienced at all and---"

"_It's fine,_" interrupted Souzou, trying to calm her down. "_I'm a man of my word - when I say I won't touch you, I mean it._"

"You promise?" asked Nicole, unconsciously taking his hand.

"_Hai,_" he whispered, squeezing her hand. "_I promise._"

"What about...? You know..." stammered Nicole. "You paid and all..."

"_Men like to tell stories,_" Souzou said, an enigmatic smile on his face. "_No one needs to know about tonight but you and me. I won't tell if you won't._"

Nicole gave him a wobbly smile.

"_But I did pay for a night here,_" he continued, gesturing at the futon. "_Just remember, I won't touch you and I promise you that._"

Nicole had to admit, her whole day had been exhausting and there was no way she could get back to the room she shared with Yumi and Saki without being seen - she wanted to go without being punished her first day. Anyway, if he promised, then he promised. And she was getting sort of cozy where she was, pressed against his firm, strong body with his arms wrapped protectively around her. It was like one of her dreams, him holding her, protecting her, staying with her. She yawned as Souzou laid her back down on the futon. Then she sat bolt upright as he started tugging her kimono down from around her shoulders.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

"_Making it look convincing, in case anyone walks in on us_," replied Souzou, pulling the collar of the kimono down so far that it just barely covered her chest. "_Anyway... It's been so long since I've felt a woman's skin against my own... Even if it's just your back against my chest, I can just feel it._"

"Oh... okay," Nicole said bemusedly, finding it hard to think clearly as Souzou lay down beside her and pulled her close to him, fitting her body against his spoon fashion. "You're warm..."

She said that without thinking and as it sank in, she blushed - Souzou just smiled and pulled the blanket up over them both, making sure to leave Nicole's shoulders exposed.

"_Just one question..._" he whispered. "_Onamae wa nan desu ka?_"

"Nicole," she replied sleepily.

"_Oyasumi nasai, Nikooru,_" whispered Souzou, his voice a soft breath on her ear.

"Good night..." responded Nicole, pausing for a moment. "Souzou..."

----

----

Miku woke the next morning with two small, warm bodies cuddling against him. Okon was on his right, her back to him as she clutched at his arm with one hand, sucking on the thumb of the other. He smiled - she loved being the oldest girl, but she was still so much of a child. Omasu was on his left with one small, thin arm resting on his chest and her head on his shoulder - and she was drooling a little bit. Both of them were still sound asleep. Miku wondered what time it was - he had collapsed from sheer exhaustion last night and had no idea of the passage of time. He turned his head carefully, trying not to wake his sisters, and looked over at the wall.

The very first rays of sunlight were beginning to filter through the rice-paper panels - well, there was no way he could get back to sleep, so he decided to get up. Sliding his arm out of Okon's grip and giving her the blanket to hold onto was easy enough, but he had no idea how to move Omasu and not wake her. He thought for a moment, then shifted a little bit, trying to ease his shoulder out from under her head. His movements were as careful as he could possibly make them, but her blue eyes fluttered open and she yawned, looking up at him.

"_What'th wrong, 'nii-chan?_" she asked, lisping sleepily.

"_Daijoubu, Maa-chan,_" Miku whispered, sliding his shoulder out from under her head and gently shifting her onto the pillow. "_Don't worry about it. Just go back to sleep, ne? It's early._"

Omasu nodded and her eyes closed as she mumbled an affirmative response to her brother. Miku carefully sat up, then got to his feet, stepping over Okon as best he could. There were some things he needed to do before he had a long talk with Nakamura-san later. He padded out and down the hallway, crossed the living room and slipped out the front door, shivering in the early morning's chill. His feet felt like they were freezing - of course, they would have anyway, as his last pair of _tabi_ socks had mysteriously disappeared in the laundry. Swallowing hard and clutching at his arms in an effort to keep warm, he started off for his own house - he refused to call it 'home' anymore.

The morning was so quiet - it was winter, so there were no birds singing to greet the day and, aside from the brilliant colors of the sunrise, everything was grey and dreary-looking. The skeletal black trees had no leaves and a few houses sported icicles hanging from the eaves of their roofs. But there was no snow, which was fitting - snow was too pretty for a day of sorrow like today, he thought. He sighed and watched his breath come out as a thick cloud in the cold air - it was so cold and wet that he sneezed a couple of times, cursing whoever was talking about him.

Trying to speed up as the morning got windier was starting to wear at him. He didn't want to go back to his house - it would be so easy to turn around and go back to Nakamura-san's. But he knew he couldn't do that. As the oldest son, the responsibility of seeing to his mother's burial fell to him - he supposed he would have to get the old man disposed of too. He got a sort of savage pleasure knowing the old pig had paid for all the wrongs he had done to the family and everyone else. But he quickly pushed that thought from his mind - he was supposed to go into this reverently.

Miku tried to force his dry throat to swallow as he approached his house - even the house itself looked dead. Someone had closed the door and there was no light filtering through the _shoji_ to make the house look occupied. It was as dreary and grey as the trees that died in the winter - and it wouldn't come back to life in spring. The young man with the topaz eyes sighed heavily, watching his breath again, and managed to make his throat swallow. That action, however, did nothing to move the lump that had lodged itself there. He bit his lip and forced himself to slide the door open.

Inside, the house looked perfectly normal, if a little neater than usual. The futon in the living room had been folded up and put away in the corner - the room certainly didn't look like a place of death. Miku swallowed hard again, trying to force back tears of pain, grief, and rage. He shook his head, just to clear it, and headed for the hallway to check the other rooms of the house - he wasn't sure which door he could bring himself to open first. Finally, he settled on the old man's room, slid the _shoji_ open, and stepped cautiously inside, not sure what he was going to see.

"_Oh,_" he said dully.

The old man had been cleaned up and laid out on his futon in a white men's kimono. His eyes had been closed, which Miku was grateful for - he couldn't have handled seeing those cold, dead, terrified eyes again. Miku swallowed hard yet again, looking around the room to see what other changes had been made. The futon had been moved so that it was covering the blood spots on the floor, but nothing could be done about the blood on the walls. Miku forced his stomach to calm down - it wasn't like he had eaten in the last twenty-four hours anyway. He knelt beside his grandfather's futon and said a prayer for the dead - in a way, he was sorry he and the old man had never gotten along. With that done, he rose to his feet and sighed again, turning away to leave the room and closing the door behind him

"_All right, Hasegawa..._" he whispered to himself, bracing himself for what he was sure he would find in the next room.

Carefully, he slid the door open, but didn't step into the room. Instead, he just peered in cautiously, feeling like he was doing something wrong for some reason. He saw what he had come to see. His mother's body had been dressed in a white kimono, wrapped right over left, and nicely laid out on her futon, with the blanket folded beside it. The kimono she had been wearing when she died was nowhere in sight, for which Miku was sorely thankful. Her face was peaceful and there was no blood on her - no sign at all of a violent death. Had her face not been so deathly pale, Miku would have thought her asleep. Biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, Miku approached his mother's body and sank to his knees beside her clean, white futon.

"_Okaa-san... doushite?_" he whispered, asking 'why' as in 'Why did everything have to happen like this?'. "_Why couldn't it have been me? I could have taken the old pig out and you would still be here to take care of Okon and Omasu! Okaa-san, why did it have to be you who did this? Why did you stain your hands with blood?_"

He swallowed again, trying to rid himself of the lump in his throat, and took hold of his mother's hand, pressing it to his face as if he thought he could bring warmth back to it.

"_I'll join you if you want me to, 'kaa-san,_" he said in a hollow voice. "_You shouldn't have been the one to die over this._"

His hand strayed to the waist tie of his _hakama_ and he felt the knife he had bought yesterday, the one Nicole had been admiring and wishing she could have. He didn't understand what a girl like her would want with a knife of all things, but he had humored her and let her hold it for a moment. A vacant smile spread over his face and he removed the _tanto_ from the waist of his _hakama_. Then he blinked and saw what he was doing - he couldn't stain her with blood again. So he pushed himself to his feet and shuffled out of the room, mumbling a quick prayer. He took a deep breath as he knelt in the middle of the living room, unsheathing the dagger. Closing his eyes, he prepared to end his own life quickly.

"_Yamate!_" screamed a familiar female voice, stopping the blade less than an inch from Miku's heart.

"_Yamero!_" roared a male voice at the same time.

"_Dame!_" cried the female voice. "_Don't do that Miku, I'm begging you!_"

He looked up with pain and desperation in his eyes and saw the one person he had least expected to see and the one he needed most.

"_Okaa-san? Otou-san?_" he asked, completely baffled - this defied any knowledge he had ever had of reality. "_But how... I mean... You're both... HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?_"

A man in his late forties and a woman in her early forties stood there in front of him, both of them dressed in white burial kimono and slightly translucent, with near-identical expressions of fear and concern. The man had his hand protectively on the woman's shoulder - she looked close to tears. Miku shook his head, then slapped himself a couple of times, trying to shake the image away. Had everything last night been so traumatic that he had taken to drinking? The couple did not vanish when he opened his eyes, so it had to either be real or one hell of a hangover.

"_Listen son, it's not time for you yet,_" the man said firmly, his topaz gaze mirrored in the startled face of his son. _"I miss you and your mother does too, but it's not time for you to come and join us._"

"_Do you really think we're gone forever?_" the woman asked gently, kneeling in front of her son and ghosting her fingers across his cheek. "_As long as you remember us, we'll never be gone._"

"_That's right,_" said another male voice, this one more youthful, as the image of a young man of about twenty-five materialized beside the image of his father.

"_Honestly, do you think we would let you take the easy way out?_" asked another male voice, its owner an impish-looking lad of about twenty.

"_Kyohei? Yukinojo?_" asked Miku, feeling like his head was spinning.

"_Damn straight!_" replied Kyohei.

"_Listen, little brother,_" said Yuikinojo, his voice serious now. "_There are some things you have to do. We don't like what the old pig did either and you're the last one in the family who can do penance for the wrong._"

"_B-b-but... How?_" stuttered Miku. "_I'm the one who actually DID it! I should have been the first one to die!_"

Yukinojo planted a booted foot on his little brother's head, surprisingly strong for a ghost.

"_Baka, that's why you're the one who has to make restitution for it,_" snapped Kyohei. "_Is any of this getting through that thick skull of yours?_"

"_Kyo-chan!_" their mother said warningly. "_And Yuki, get your foot off your brother's head._"

"_Gomen 'kaa-san..._" muttered the oldest son of the Hasegawa family as the second oldest removed his foot from the top of his brother's head.

"_Son, this is what you have to do,_" his father said gravely. "_The first captain of the Sekihoutai is in Edo. You must find him and join the Sekihoutai. Help put an end to the age of master and slave._"

"_And for the love of Kami-sama,_" added Kyohei. "_Get your girlfriend out of the---_"

"_Kyohei!_" his mother grated out. "_I thought I told you not to bring that up except in tasteful terms!_"

Kyohei shuffled his feet and grumbled to himself.

"_You get the picture, right Baka-chan?_" he said grumpily.

"_KYOHEI!_" shouted his mother.

"_Maa maa, Chizuko,_" said the father, trying to pacify his wife. "_He's perpetually twenty-five, at least until he's reincarnated. You'll have to forgive him._"

Chizuko made a noise that sounded like a growl.

"_Daijoubu, 'kaa-san,_" Miku cut in quickly. "_I understand. But what about Okon and Omasu?_"

"_Nakamura-san will take care of them,_" his mother said firmly. "_They must be protected from the war. Remember that you're fighting for them too, so they can grow up without fear of... Well, you know._"

Miku nodded, feeling tears stinging his eyes painfully.

"_Son, we must leave you now, so remember what we've said,_" said the father in his soothing voice. "_Find Sagara Souzou and join the Sekihoutai. In this, you will find a way to make up for the wrong done by our family._"

"_Matte! Matte!_" cried Miku, reaching out to his family._ "'kaa-san! 'tou-san! Kyo! Yuki!_"

But as a ray of sunlight filtered in through the rice paper, they all whispered 'good-bye' to him and faded with the light.


	8. Night Wind

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 7

"Night Wind"

**Back in 2006**

"Ashley!" persisted Natalia, shaking her friend's shoulder. "Come on, they're letting us back on campus. The firemen can't find anything that's dangerous right off."

"All the water pipes exploded and the whole campus is drenched inside and out," Kirsten informed her. "But since they aren't still running, they're going to let us go back on campus in groups and try to salvage our stuff."

"I don't care about my stuff," grumbled Ashley, still sitting on the bench with Nicole's things in her lap and beside her. "You can go."

"But---"

"I said I don't care!" yelled Ashley, glaring angrily at her friends.

Natalia glared right back - she was the harsh realist of the group and she was just going to have to MAKE Ashley see sense.

"Listen, blowing up at us isn't going to bring Nicole back!" she said firmly, giving her friend another shake. "It's okay to be sad, but you can't lash out at people like that!"

Ashley turned away from Natalia, refusing to look at her or any of her friends. Ms. Kirkpatrick had heard the outburst and come over to see about the disturbance. She shooed the girls, Daniel, Keith, Patrick, and the Japanese Culture club people away, assuring them that this situation was better left to adults to deal with. Keith opened his mouth to say that he was eighteen already, but Ms. Kirkpatrick would hear nothing of it. She stood in front of Ashley and addressed her with a soft, rather patronizing voice.

"Ashley, we are all affected by this tragic situation," she said. "We're all going to miss Nicole, but you're going to need to get a hold of yourself. I'm not telling you to suppress your feelings or deny them. I'm just telling you to express them in a different way.

Ashley just glared at her, something she would never normally do.

"Also, I think you should know about this before we contact Nicole's parents and this situation really blows up," continued Ms. Kirkpatrick. "We know you're going to be home from school for a good long time while you're grieving and that's perfectly okay. However, due to your attack on Mr. Sheehan, we're going to have to insist that you don't come back to school until you see a therapist and get a clean bill of health. We are working in your best interests, along with the safety of other students."

"What?" demanded Ashley, standing up. "You mean you're suspending me?"

"This is not a disciplinary suspension technically," Ms. Kirkpatrick said carefully. "We would have expected you to be absent for around two weeks for normal grieving and we would allow you to have a lighter work load. But for the next ten school days following that two-week period, you will have your assignments e-mailed to you and we will expect them to be complete by the time you have seen your therapist and been cleared to return to school."

"But... I've never been in trouble before!" exclaimed Ashley, disbelief written on her face. "The only time I ever got detention was for overdue library books!"

Ms. Kirkpatrick shook her head.

"I'm afraid this is the way it has to be," she said firmly. "Since this is your first time getting in serious trouble, we can take into account the traumatic situation. We've spoken to Mr. Sheehan's parents and they have agreed not to press charges due to the tragic circumstances."

Ashley nodded dumbly and as soon as Ms. Kirkpatrick had turned away, she turned around to cram Nicole's things back into the dirty, faded lavender bag. People started gathering around her again. Natalia and Kirsten were closest to her, their hands on her shoulders, trying to keep her steady. Daniel was hovering around behind Natalia, unsure of what to do with himself in the current situation. He was almost totally anti-social by nature and big crowds of stupid people usually annoyed him down to his last nerve. Nicole had been fairly irritating to him, always chattering on and on like a squirrel and trying to start conversations about the stupidest things. He was a quiet, cynical, science-oriented person - she was... loud.

Keith had left Patrick to come and stand with Ashley, an uncertain expression on his face - it was somewhere between suppressed shock and wanting to cry. Though he might have been rather clueless on many points, but he knew that Nicole had special feelings for him. He wasn't sure if he would ever date her - he was content to just be friends - but that didn't mean he wanted her to leave him alone. Knowing that he wouldn't ever see her at lunch or in psychology or just out on campus again, that they would never hug after the bell had rung again - it just sort of left holes in his days. He didn't know Ashley all that well - they'd gone through elementary school, junior high, and high school together, but had never really been close. But by the way Nicole was always talking about her, saying what good friends they were, he knew this had to be hard on her.

"Ashley..." he said quietly, not sure of what to say next. "I... um... I'm sorry... I don't know what else to say. Except, I think she would have liked seeing you beat the shit out of Casey. She never liked him."

Ashley smiled weakly, remembering the disaster on the senior retreat, when Casey Sheehan had tried his best to make a fool of Nicole in front of the whole senior class and how it had blown up in his face. The class, for once in all their years singling her out and making her miserable, sided with Nicole. They all told her what a nasty, scummy thing that was for him to do. Even the guys he hung out with came and apologized to her for going along with it. Some of them tried to assure her that they had tried to stop him, but he had insisted. It had been Nicole's first time feeling like she was actually a part of the class, after feeling like a separate unit - maybe even another species - for so long. For the first time, the spotlight had shone on her and for once, people weren't laughing at her - they were cheering her on. Ashley had been so happy for her.

"I think she would have liked to do it herself," she said sadly, unconsciously rubbing her knuckles where they had connected with Casey's nose. "I know she could have."

"Yeah, I could see her doing that," agreed Keith.

Ashley sighed - Nicole hadn't even been gone for a day and already people were reminiscing about the times they had seen and heard her in action.

"It's amazing," she said. "After all those years of getting picked on, she never hated them. Sometimes it took her a long time to forgive them, but she never let herself really hate them. All it did was make her a better person - better than they'll ever be."

Keith nodded - though it was true, she had gotten on his nerves sometimes, he knew that Nicole was a genuinely good person. She was always trying to stop the idiots throwing things at her friends and making fun of them - she looked out for everybody else, but sometimes she forgot to look out for herself. Even after he had turned her down when she had asked him out, she still greeted him every day with a smile and a hug. She still talked to him - and he wasn't clueless enough not to know that she had still been hopeful that he would change his mind.

"Yup," he said softly, his voice catching for just a second.

Ashley shook her head as she looked over at the group of idiots, who were joking loudly and crudely about what could have happened to Nicole.

"You know, she always thought about killing herself," she said bitterly. "Thinking 'they'll be sorry when I'm gone', and now this. She always told me not to hate people, but I'm finding it really hard not to."

"They're just assholes," Keith said simply. "They've always been like that."

"But you'd think - she's really gone and they're acting like they're glad about it," growled Ashley, wanting to go over there and break someone else's nose - or his jaw, or whatever.

The Japanese Culture club had crowded around Ashley, trying to offer their condolences - well, those of them who knew what the word 'condolences' meant. Ashley answered them with mindless 'uh-huh's and 'thank you's, really grateful for their concern, but unable to act like she cared at the moment. Her heart was on the ground, as Nicole would have said, and though her body was physically strong, she had neither the strength nor the desire to pick it up again. When her parents had died, Nicole had been there for her - the strong one, the shoulder to cry on. It was never explicitly stated, but Ashley thought just like everyone else sort of did, that Nicole would just always be there, ready to listen and offer support. This was the first time that Ashley had ever needed her friend and she hadn't been there. Even when they were apart, she could always call - Nicole didn't care what time it was.

"Now she's just... not there..." she whispered to herself.

**Back in February of 1866**

Nicole woke up shivering, her shoulders numbed by the cold air in the room - it seemed like there was a window open or something, letting in the night wind.

_Did I leave the ceiling fan on again?_ she thought blearily, fishing around for her glasses. _Shit..._

So it was really real - she was trapped in a Japanese bordello during the Bakumatsu. She felt something shift behind her and froze... Oh no... Had she really...? She couldn't make herself think of it. She couldn't have done _that_, could she? Certainly if she had, she would remember it. But she thought of her psychology class and the chibi Sigmund Freud in her head poked her brain with one of his little chibi-cigars. If a memory was traumatic enough, sometimes the brain would try to suppress or erase the memory, try to make it so that you believed it never happened.

_Freud was a sex-crazed crack-head,_ Nicole thought in disgust, remembering her last vocabulary section. _Okay... This is it..._

She took a deep breath as quietly as she could and turned over carefully. As realization dawned on her, like a bird landing on her head, she let in a soft gasp - she was face-to-face with... It couldn't be... _No, we went over this last night, er, tonight,_ she thought, rattling her brain as she tried to figure out whether it was late night or early morning. _It's him._ Closing her eyes and re-opening them again would not make what, or who, was in front of her disappear. It was the man she had dreamed of waking up with - Sagara Souzou. He was still settled in on his side as he had been last night, resting his head on one arm. The other arm was draped loosely over Nicole's body - they were so close together that Nicole could feel his breath on her face, warming her chilled nose.

With a rather naughty smile on her face, she thought back to the one fan fiction she had that was for her eyes only, the one that she never spoke of and would never post - the one about her and Souzou on her eighteenth birthday. A delicious shiver trailed up her spine and she twitched involuntarily, then tried to stifle a giggle. She was lucky he was a heavy sleeper - he was still out like a light, though his nose twitched a little for some reason. Nicole smiled again, this time peacefully, as she thought back and remembered what had happened last night. Cold fear formed an icy lump in her stomach as she thought about what might have happened. Then she mentally shook her head and went back to studying Souzou's handsome features - and thinking about what DID happen last night.

He had stopped. It threw her already-traumatized brain for a loop, but he had stopped. She didn't understand it, not one tiny bit. His friend had paid for that night and, given her new position, he would legally have had every right to take advantage of her. She had seen the look in his dark eyes - he had fully intended to do just that, had said so himself. But he had stopped. She licked her suddenly-dry lips automatically and tried to make her brain process the information it had taken in the previous night. What had made him stop? From what she had read about Japanese men in this particular era, or overall, for that matter (strictly going on reading, folks), a woman's pleas wouldn't stop them. Of course, in that day and age, all men thought like that - women were theirs and that was that. Suppressing her rage and the urge to throttle the man who lay with her, she tried to cool down.

Really, what had stopped him? She wasn't very good at recognizing facial expressions or nonverbal cues, but she had seen the lust in his eyes last night. She had felt the heat of his touch. His kiss, though tender, had been possessive - she had felt his tongue just barely brush her lips, thinking about making her his... Or was that kind of kiss protective? She had only been kissed three times, but the one that stood out in her mind was similar to the one she had experienced last night. Paul had held her so tightly, pressing his mouth down on hers, only he had been obviously restraining himself. He had even asked her "Was that a bad move?" after. Souzou had held her just as protectively, but the touch of his tongue had been fleeting, letting her know that, though he wanted her body, he would leave her pure and untouched. Paul's kiss had been rather... well... naughty, what with breaths mingling and heat building as he held her in the dark. Nicole had certainly enjoyed it - was blown away by it - but she was glad he hadn't tried to move further with her.

"_Ohayou gozaimasu,_" said a deep male voice, breaking into Nicole's thoughts and startling her - it took all she had to keep from making a _meep_ noise.

"Erm... h-hi..." stammered Nicole, trying to keep herself covered - she moved a lot in her sleep and her kimono had fallen down to an indecent level.

"_Sleep well?_" Souzou inquired conversationally, as if this was something that he did on a regular basis.

Nicole's expression soured - for all she knew, he _did_ do this on a regular basis.

"Fine, I guess," she grumbled, tugging her kimono and trying to get it back up where it was supposed to be. "You?"

Souzou stretched like a cat, sighed, and languidly reached one hand out to touch Nicole's cheek, propping himself up with the other arm.

"_Better than I have in a while, but,_" he said casually, running his hand into her hair briefly as he paused, then returning it to her cheek. "_You kick, you know that?_"

Nicole's mouth fell open - who the hell was he to criticize how she slept? - and she drew breath to start an argument.

"_Shh,_" whispered Souzou, sliding his hand under Nicole's chin to close her mouth and placing a gentle finger on her lips to silence her. "_Just let me look at you._"

Nicole tried to look at his eyes, but his hair obstructed her view - she didn't like where this was leading.

"Why?" she demanded. "You promised you wouldn't do anything!"

"_Did I?_" Souzou asked consideringly. "_Oh yes... I remember... Ah, if memory serves me correctly, I promised that I wouldn't TOUCH you..._"

He licked his lips and Nicole's eyes widened in fear as he sat up, leaning on his left arm, and leaned over her, keeping his hand on her face.

"_I don't recall saying anything about LOOKING at you..._" he said innocently, a devilish grin on his face as he trailed his hand from her face to her throat, then down onto her... "_Itai!_"

He snatched his hand back, examining red bite marks, then looked down at Nicole, who growled at him menacingly.

"That's touching," she snarled, pulling the blanket up to her neck and glaring at him - any affection she might have had for him was draining from her quickly.

Souzou looked at her reproachfully, though there was a sparkle of playfulness in his eyes.

"_It's like you have gunpowder in you,_" he said, his voice a smooth purr. "_You're just like fireworks._"

Nicole looked at him with a confused expression - it wasn't hard to confuse her, as Ashley would have kindly pointed out.

(Authoress pokes her best friend)

"_Hanabi-musume,_" announced Souzou, pointing at Nicole.

"Fireworks Girl?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

"_Hai!_" said Souzou, pleased with himself.

Nicole rolled her eyes and located her glasses, sticking the two side pieces behind her ears so she wouldn't have to squint at Souzou anymore.

"Don't you have anything better to do than annoy me early in the morning?" she groused - Nicole was NOT a morning person, as anyone who had ever tried to drag her out of bed could tell you. Well at least as long as she was still in bed.

Souzou turned over quickly and braced his hands on either side of Nicole's shoulders, looming over her.

"_What do you suggest?_" he growled lasciviously, nudging her legs apart with his knee.

Nicole froze in terror, then collected herself and slapped him sharply across the face.

"_You little..._" Souzou's voice trailed off in disbelief as he got off her and pressed his hand to his cheek, where a red hand print was forming. "_You've got some nerve..._"

He glared at her, but Nicole held firm and glared right back.

"_You're really not afraid of anything, are you?_" Souzou asked, more statement than question. "_Do you have any idea what would happen if I told the madam what you just did?_"

"I don't care!" Nicole snapped rashly, pressing her legs together again.

Souzou just stared at her, then he shook his head.

"_You're crazy, you know that?_" he told her. "_If any of the other girls in this place even thought to do something like that, they'd die of fright right then and there!_"

"Well, what would happen?" demanded Nicole. "It's not like I haven't been hit before. If that's the worst she can do, then I can handle it."

"_I don't know what would happen,_" Souzou said darkly. "_And I don't want to either._"

Then his manner changed - he shook his head and looked at her sadly.

"_I know you've got spirit, Hanabi-musume,_" he said softly. "_But you're in a whole different world here. Your kind of spirit, your fearlessness... They'll get you places, but it's nowhere you want to go, trust me! If you don't stop doing things like what you just did to me, you'll get yourself killed!_"

He took her hands, his eyes begging her to understand.

"_Listen to me, Nikooru,_" he said firmly. "_Now, I like you - if it had been any other girl who had hauled off and hit me, I'd have gone to the madam straight away---_"

Souzou's mind kicked him - he knew he didn't have it in him to do anything of the sort.

"_---But there's something special about you,_" he said quietly, squeezing her hands. "_Pack that spirited side of you away for now... But remember that when I leave, we'll be that much closer to an age where the concept of owning another human is an abomination. You know my name, but do you know who I am?_"

Nicole sat up slowly and with as much dignity as she could muster early in the morning.

"You're Sagara Souzou, first captain of the Sekihoutai," she said in a level voice, her expression serious.

"_Okay, I don't know how you know that, or why you know that... Damn it, I don't even know why I'm having this conversation with a girl like you!_" ranted Souzou, smacking one hand to his forehead. "_I don't know if you're some kind of witch or if that was just a lucky guess and I don't really care... Just for the love of Kami-sama, don't DO things like that!_"

He sighed tiredly at the end of that, closing his eyes and bowing his head.

"_I should be getting my friends and leaving,_" he mumbled, abruptly pushing himself to his feet and going over to get the clothes he had taken off last night. "_Hanabi-musume... Nikooru... Take care of yourself._"

He turned to leave.

"_Matte!_" cried Nicole, scrambling to her feet and reaching out to him.

"_What is it?_" asked Souzou, pulling his shirt on.

Nicole's face blushed a pretty shade of pink and she worried at her lower lip with her teeth.

"I know... I have no right to ask you this, but..." she said softly, then paused for a moment. "Could I have one kiss before you go?"

Souzou sighed again and pulled his vest on over his unbuttoned shirt.

"_Come here_," he said quietly, holding his hand out to her.

Nicole took hold of Souzou's outstretched hand and he pulled her close to him, wrapping his other arm around her and pressing her to his bare chest. She sighed contentedly and closed her eyes, just feeling his warmth and strength around her, as she had wished to do for so long. Souzou bowed his head, inhaling the scent of her hair, all the products Yumi and Saki had used on it - the scent of lavender stood out in his mind. Then he noticed something that would make the proceedings fairly difficult - he was about a foot taller than Nicole. Throwing caution to the wind, he slid one arm down around her legs, knocking her knees from under her as he bent over her. Nicole's eyes flew open and she stared up at him in a mix of surprise, fear, and trust.

"_It works better this way,_" he explained in a throaty voice.

Nicole didn't even get a chance to say 'oh' before Souzou released one arm's grip, supporting her on his right arm only, and slid his left hand under her chin. Her eyes fluttered as they watched his brown ones close, then closed themselves when she felt Souzou's breath on her lips. He was panting, she noticed vaguely. A sound somewhere between a growl and a purr escaped his lips only a second before they crashed down on hers. He wasn't holding back this time. Pulling back a little, he drew her lower lip into his mouth, sucking and nibbling on it. When it was swollen from his attentions, he released it and swept his tongue along the curve of her lips.

_Better than I ever dreamed it... _was the thought that floated through Nicole's passion- and pleasure-hazed mind.

Souzou noticed her first resistance and slowly pushed his questing tongue between her lips, teasing her tongue to life, awakening it to dance with his own. Nicole couldn't help but respond to him, clinging to him for dear life - she thought her heart might stop if she let go of him. His tongue swept up to flutter its tip against the roof of her mouth, making Nicole moan deeply into their kiss. Both of them were thinking the same thing - _This is the perfect kiss_. Souzou knew his way around women, but not one of them had ever affected him like this just from a single kiss. Nicole, far from completely innocent yet attractively inexperienced, didn't have much to compare to, but this one blew that whole weekend away. Her feet had barely been touching the floor, but her knees gave out anyway and Souzou caught her. When neither of them could last another second without breathing, he lifted his lips from hers.

Nicole went completely limp in the arms of the man she had always dreamed of, who had dreamed of her for only one night. Both of them were panting as though they had been running for their lives and their lips were swollen from the prolonged pressure and suction. Nicole felt hot all over and Souzou knew that if he didn't restrain himself RIGHT NOW, he was going to wind up throwing her back down on that futon and ravishing her. From the look on her flushed face, it appeared Nicole might not have minded if he decided to do exactly that. Her heart was throbbing - hell, her whole body was throbbing - and her chest rose and fell quickly, reminding Souzou how much skin she had exposed. He held her to his chest again, trying to think about things that would calm him down... Finally, he was able to restrain himself on will power alone.

"Souzou, I---" Nicole began.

"_Don't say it, Nikooru,_" Souzou cut in as he set her down. "_For both our sakes._"

He kissed a tear from her cheek, wiped another one away with his finger, sighed wearily, and turned away without a word, leaving her alone in the room.

----

----

Souzou sat out in the front room of the establishment, waiting for his friends.

"_Bet the first one's Reichi,_" he muttered sourly.

Indeed, Reichi was the first to drag himself out of the back and slump down beside Souzou.

"_God almighty..._" the spiky-haired man sighed, rolling his eyes heavenward. "_Man, when we come back through here, you've gotta try out this chick, Saki. If she can wear me out, she has to be part kami or something - it's inhuman! Whoa... She was incredible. And she could do this one thing ---_"

"_Shut up! I don't want to hear it!_" interrupted Souzou, smacking his best friend upside the head. "_For godsakes, keep the details to yourself!_"

Reichi grinned annoyingly at his friend and captain.

"_Sounds like somebody wound up with a cold fish, ne?_" he persisted, prodding his friend with his elbow a la Monty Python's 'Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge' sketch. "_So the gaijin girl wasn't all she was cracked up to be?_"

"_Oh leave me alone,_" groused Souzou, folding his arms on his chest and sulking.

Reichi's manner turned serious.

"_While we're on the subject, I heard some weird noises coming from your room,_" he commented, frowning. "_And it didn't sound like anything that felt good either. Souzou... You didn't get too rough with her, did you?_"

Souzou looked at his friend like he had grown donkey ears and a tiger's tail. For one thing, ever since his wife had died, Reichi had been the worst womanizer he knew - he'd do anything with any girl he ever met, well as long as she was pretty. And it didn't matter whether they were married, single, owned, free, or anything else. As long as they were pretty - and when he got drunk, any woman was pretty to him - he'd 'do' them, as he put it. And for another thing, Reichi was into things that made Souzou cringe - whips and chains, things like that, wink wink, nudge nudge, knowhatImean knowhatImean? If he was getting all preachy with Souzou about getting rough, then the pot was calling the kettle black.

"_Of course not!_" snapped Souzou. "_That's your area of expertise, I believe._"

"_I'm not rough - I'm open-minded,_" retorted Reichi.

"_Baka,_" quipped Souzou, clonking his best friend on the head.

"_Itai!_"

"_Whazgoin'on?_" mumbled a tousle-haired young man with golden eyes.

"_Kyo? Why in the hell did you wake me up?_" came a voice from the hall, its owner, a youth with blue-black hair and turquoise eyes, emerging from the hall half-dressed. "_Me 'n Toriko were about to go again..._"

"_If you were about to go again, it sounds like you were already awake,_" commented Souzou.

"_Shaddup, Souzou,_" complained Touya, the one with the insatiable drive early in the morning. "_You all know what I mean. Jeez..._"

The three other men humored their friend and comrade and he came and sat with them.

"_I guess it's too early to share stories?_"

"_Well---_" began Reichi.

"_Yes! It's too early!_" Souzou cut in

"_Cut the crap, y'all,_" complained the golden-eyed youth, Kyo. "_We all paid last night, so let's get outta here before the lady of the place charges us for overtime._"

"_What he said,_" agreed Souzou.

The young men all stood up, finished pulling shirts and vests on, and headed out the door.

"_You coming, Captain?_" called Touya, stopping to wait.

"_Oh... Sorry!_" Souzou replied, having hung back for one backwards look before shaking his head.

----

----

That night, as Himejima-sama promised, Nicole got the night off. She spent most of her day in the bath, sitting as far away as she could from other occupants when there were any. She wasn't too concerned about sharing the bath - they were all girls, so nobody had anything anybody else hadn't seen - but she just wanted to be alone. When she finally got out of the bath, she looked like a boiled lobster with ropes of wet, uncombed hair hanging down its back. She got straight into her sleeping yukata and took to haunting the part of the building that was the girls' rooms like a ghost. Since her sleeping yukata was white, several of the girls screamed and ran, thinking she was an actual ghost. Part of her wished she was.

_Can't think like that,_ she admonished herself. _Have to get home... Have to be alive to get home._

Her mind was replaying the scenes of last night and the following morning over and over - it was like watching romance movies after a breakup. But she made up her mind not to cry - that was why she spent most of her day in the bath. There, she could sweat it out instead of crying it out. When she was alone in the bath, just sitting in the hot water, she would sing to herself, mostly in English. This frightened two fifteen-year-old farm girls into hysterics, thinking there was a ghost in the bath house, singing strange songs to drive them mad. Himejima-sama herself had stormed into the bath house to see what all the commotion was about. When she saw Nicole sitting there, staring off into space and singing, she smacked a hand to her forehead, ordered the girls out of the bath house, and left because her makeup was melting off.

"_That's it - shoo, shoo!_" she kept on, making 'shooing' motions with her hands as she ushered the girls out of the building full of steam. "_Go get dressed, both of you!_"

And the two fifteen-year-olds scurried away, clutching their towels and trying to pull their _yukata_ on at the same time.

"_I swear... What girls today have become!_" Himejima-sama said to herself. "_No feminine wiles whatsoever! Can't tell a gaijin from a ghost, literally!_"

Nicole had stayed in the bath, not even getting out to eat, for six consecutive hours, sweating, singing, and babbling nonsensically to herself. The only reason she got out at all was that five more girls had gone to Himejima-sama about a disturbance, so the madam herself had come in and ordered Nicole out of the bath. So the American girl pulled her white sleeping _yukata_ on and started walking aimlessly around the courtyard. For another two hours, she sat stock-still on a bamboo bench, staring off into space, thinking, reminiscing, wondering, and crying silently. The only reason she had come in off the bench and out of the cold was that Yumi had marched outside and dragged her back by her hair.

After being dragged inside, Nicole was told to sit on the floor while some of the girls tried to tame her hair again - Saki had to work that night, so Yumi was supervising. The auburn waves had wound themselves into sort of tangled ringlets and tied themselves in all kinds of knots. Toriko was taking care of the right side of Nicole's head and was making good progress, while the other girl was constantly apologizing to Nicole for pulling her hair. The other girl was a nineteen-year-old living replica of Faye Valentine who had no name and was just called Saru - "monkey". From what Nicole had heard, she was as flexible as a spider monkey - the imagery that brought to mind sickened her.

Finally, when Nicole's hair cascaded down her back and had been thoroughly combed through with a conditioning liquid, Yumi, Toriko, and Saru called it quits. Saru roomed with Toriko and a girl who called herself "Arisu" but was referred to by the other girls as "Inu-Yasha" - Female dog demon. In other words, she was the mega-bitch of the establishment, temperamental and confrontational, but a total sycophant when it came to interacting with the madam. Many of the other girls, led by Toriko, were constantly playing pranks on her. A classic that got her every time was drawing the hiragana for "_inu_", "dog", on her forehead while she was sleeping. Even Himejima-sama sometimes went along with the joke and wouldn't tell her to wash it off for hours. That was always a good one for a rainy day, since when she got bored she either picked a fight with someone or went to sleep.

But tonight, Nicole wasn't interested in pranking the mega-bitch or gossiping with the other girls about recent customers - anything but that, she thought. She thought of visiting some of the older women, the ones who sort of played the "favorite aunt that you can tell anything" to everybody. On the other hand, she didn't want to bother anybody, not when everyone here had more than enough problems of their own. Finally, she sneaked out of the room with all the girls in it, went back to her room, got her cape and a pillow, and shuffled off to sleep in a corner of an unused room. As she laid down, she could hear the night wind whistling through the trees outside. To her, it sounded like crying.

"I thought... I thought I loved him..." she whispered, curling up with her cape wrapped around her and turning over to cry herself to sleep.


	9. Scarlet Shade

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 8

"Scarlet Shade"

Warning: This chapter contains lemon. Feel free to read until you come to the warning note. There will be a non-lemon recap in the next chapter.

----

----

Miku had been wandering around Edo all day, trying to find out whatever he could about this Sagara Souzou he had heard about. Did anyone know where he was? Could they point him out in a crowd? So far all he knew was that the uniform of the Sekihoutai was quite distinctive and that they all wore red bandannas. He cracked his knuckles and turned down another street resisting the temptation once more to go back to the red-light district. Before he did anything stupid, he had to find the Sekihoutai and join up with them.

----

----

The guardians of Edo Castle were getting restless - no one had tried anything foolish lately, so they had been out of something to do. Hyottoko was belching fire to the tune of "Sobakasu" while Shikijou threw the chained ball he carried at him every so often to try and shut him up. Beshimi was sticking his darts to the walls in patterns, making them spell out rude words in hiragana. Hannya was going stir-crazy and was amusing himself by taking his metal claws and scratching the stone floor just to make everyone cringe. Even the Okashira was beginning to let boredom get to him - and when Shinomori Aoshi got bored, there were only two things he could to snap him out of it: 1) killing someone or 2) being with a woman. The five of them made a silent agreement. Hyottoko, Beshimi, and Shikijou would stay behind, so that none of them would be faulted for slacking off, while Aoshi and Hannya paid a visit to a certain area of town for a night.

"_Give 'er a good one for me, Okashira!_" Shikijou called jovially.

"_Are you sure you can't bring one back?_" hissed Beshimi, looking around at his comrades. "_We're big boys - we know how to share!_"

Hyottoko grinned at his Okashira.

"_Heh, I heard from some of the regular-duty guards that Himejima-sama's place has a new girl and she's supposed to be a little fire-fox,_" he said, elbowing Aoshi in a 'knowing' way. "_They're calling her the Hanabi Gaijin - say she's really got some spirit! And I know you think the submissive ones are boring._"

"_Fireworks Foreigner..._" Aoshi mused in a silky voice. "_This sounds very interesting. Hannya, would you mind disguising yourself? We can't be scaring people, you know._"

"_Of course, Okashira,_" said Hannya, bowing respectfully. In the blink of an eye, a handsome young man of about twenty-three stood where there had once been a feared ninja. "_Will this do?_"

"_Aa,_" replied Aoshi, a faint smile ghosting over his lips as he turned away and Hannya followed. "_Shall we say a flourish from each of you?_"

There were hoots, catcalls, and general sounds of agreement from the three Oniwabanshuu staying behind.

"_Then I shall see you tomorrow, my friends,_" Aoshi said softly, garnering a response of cheers and encouragements. "_Come, Hannya._"

"_Aa,_" said the man in disguise, following his leader closely.

As soon as the two men were out of sight of the Edo Castle, they started for the red-light district. It was still broad daylight outside, so it wouldn't do to make a beeline for it - better to take their time. They passed shops and stalls and food stands, the usual things, not paying any attention to them. Young girls and even some older women giggled when they saw the two attractive young men, the daring even winking at them. Hannya's sense of humor was in tune today, so when a pretty girl with bright green eyes walked right into him, instead of taking her out, he stepped back.

"_Gomen nasai, Kawaiiko-chan,_" he said smoothly, kissing the girl on the cheek and sending her on her way with stars in her eyes.

"_Hannya, save it for later,_" chided Aoshi, though he thought his friend's display was amusing. "_We all know you like them young. Such a lolita complex..._"

"_I won't go any lower than fifteen and you know it, Okashira,_" retorted Hannya. "_I'd say eighteen is just about the perfect age - they're still young enough to be childlike, but they're old enough to be - how do I put it? - sexy._"

Another smile tugged at Aoshi's lips, but he willed it away.

"_So that's why you've been slower at sparring lately,_" he commented, a hint of snideness in his voice. "_You've been so lonely as of late that you can't keep your mind out of the gutter and on your target._"

"_Okashira, you've cut me to the quick,_" drawled Hannya, putting his hand over his heart and pretending to be greatly offended. "_How could you say such things?_"

"_You learned everything you know from me,_" responded Aoshi, falling quite comfortably into the pattern of light banter between friends and comrades. "_And you know my senses. I can see your lustful face right through your mask._"

"_You, Okashira, are impossible,_" said Hannya, rolling his eyes heavenward.

They turned down another street and passed a group of four men in unusual uniforms arguing over the price of a caricature that they were pretty sure was quite explicit. Aoshi considered going over and getting one himself, but he figured he should save his money for when he really needed it. Himejima-sama's place was high-class and one of the most expensive establishments in all of Edo. The girls were supposed to be trained, with manners and all those kinds of things, besides being the prettiest girls in the district. Apparently the only rule with them was to keep them in serviceable condition - as long as they could work the next night, the customer was not charged extra. Aoshi grinned rather sadistically in his mind - normally any woman would suffice and the act was best done quickly. But tonight, however, he was going to one of the reputedly best places in all of Japan - he was going to have that Fireworks Foreigner.

_And mercy isn't in my nature,_ he thought darkly. _It's no-holds-barred tonight... And this Hanabi Gaijin is supposed to be spirited - this should be fun. It's been quite a while since I've had fun..._

The sky was starting to turn brilliant colors as the sun steadily lowered itself in the west, casting long shadows on everything. Aoshi was beginning to feel in his element - shadows were his friends and darkness was his greatest ally. A predatory grin lit upon his lips for a moment, then vanished. Yes, he was out hunting tonight - once he found his prey, he would take her, no matter what. He would make her scream. His tongue flicked out - he licked his lips and felt his breathing starting to get heavier. Pause, said his mind, stop and get your body under control or you'll take the next woman you see!

_And I'm saving my strength tonight,_ he thought, clenching his teeth to will away the desire rising in him - if he let it continue to fester, he was going to end up losing control and that simply was not an option.

Hannya was starting to have thoughts of his own.

"_It's too bad Himejima-sama won't rent out her girls for two men at once,_" he commented.

"_That and I'm not one to share a woman,_" Aoshi retorted, his voice becoming dangerous.

The sun had almost set completely just when they could first hear the small drums, drunken voices, and other general noise of the red-light district.

----

----

Nicole was in the bath again, trying to sweat out her feelings. She knew she had been in there for over two and a half hours, but she didn't care. Sweating it out made her stronger than crying it out. If she was going to survive in a place like this, she was going to have to learn not to cry. Tears filled her eyes, but she carefully blinked them away, sinking lower in the steaming hot water. She thought, didn't she hear someplace that you could lose weight by soaking in water for a long time, or was that just foolishness from her own mind? Well, she was going to lose weight anyway, whether the thing about the water was true or not. Her appetite had been completely nonexistant since her arrival at the establishment. All she had eaten in the last four days was a little greasy venison.

But thinking of the venison made her think of Miku. Why in the world had he gone and left her here? She knew she had gone over the question before, but this time she couldn't shake it away like water out of her hair. The part of her mind that was coldly realistic told her that it was for the money. Well it didn't take a genius to figure that out. He had his little sisters and his mother to think about - he obviously couldn't keep them fed and clothed just by hunting! Plus, Nicole told herself, she would have been just one more useless mouth to feed. The Hasegawa family just couldn't handle that.

"Still," she said out loud to herself. "I wish there had been some other way... Or that he would have at least told me."

But had she really wanted to know what he was going to do? Wasn't it better that he had taken her out and let her have some fun before... She still couldn't make her brain form the words to describe what Miku had done - it was that psychology thing again, about how you couldn't think about things you weren't ready to think about. Or it was something like that, if she remembered right. But thinking of psychology led her to thinking of... him... She couldn't even form his name in her mind. Back home, she had loved him, had believed that one day she would find him! Now she'd had one encounter with him and she wasn't sure what to think. He had called her "a girl like you"... so obviously she meant nothing to him. But still, he had promised not to touch her and kept his word.

The memory of his kiss was burned into her brain. She raised a shaking hand and touched her own lips - she could feel his mouth on hers again. It was so real, so alive in her mind. Her body remembered how his chest had felt pressed against her own, how she could feel the muscles in his back as she clung to him for dear life. With the memory came the physical reaction - her breathing sped up and she started unconsciously moving her hips, shifting them to create just a little friction. Then a bucket of cold water was dumped over her head and she opened her eyes, sputtering, to the sight of a frantic Nakajo Saki.

"_Nikooru-chan! Nikooru-chan, wake up!_" the younger girl said urgently. "_We need to get you dressed and fixed up - there's a really important man here who wants to see you!_"

Nicole's head spun as she was bustled out of the bath and wrapped in a towel. Saki squeezed the water out of Nicole's hair just as Toriko and Saru came bursting into the bath house, armed with hair products and carrying Nicole's kimono. Toriko dried Nicole off in a hurry, ignoring the American girl's protests, and sat down to help Saki tame that hair again. Saru cried out that there just wasn't enough time to do her hair - she would just have to get dressed and go. So they stood her up and dressed her in record time, letting her kimono hang off her shoulders even more than usual. Nicole was getting frantic as well, not sure of what was going on, but sure she didn't like it.

"What the hell? At least tell me who it is!" she whined, appealing to Saru and Saki with no luck as Toriko did a quick touch-up with some makeup.

----

----

"_I trust it will only be a moment, Himejima-san?_" Aoshi inquired in a deliberately light voice - he was getting impatient and that wasn't a good thing.

Himejima-sama resisted the temptation to glare at the young man and merely nodded silently.

"What the hell is going on?" bellowed a voice from the hall - Himejima-sama winced slightly, embarrassed. "Tell me who the guy is at least! Tell me--- Oh!"

Nicole tripped over a loose _tatami_ section and fell out into the front of the establishment, taking the _noren_ curtain down with her by accident. Saru and Toriko hurried in after her, bowing apologetically and trying to help her to her feet. In the process, one of them stepped on her obi and Nicole screeched as she had a Janet Jackson moment with her kimono. Thankfully Saru's sleeve had been in the way, Nicole thought, turning red and hitching her kimono back up. Himejima-sama coughed politely and the two experienced girls finally just hauled Nicole to her feet and backed away.

Aoshi looked over the girl in front of him carefully. His first impression was "_THIS is the Hanabi Gaijin?_" He almost let a snort of derisive laughter escape him, but restrained himself, keeping his cool, emotionless mask in place. It was true, Nicole wasn't exactly an impressive sight. Her hair was tangled, frizzy, and wet, her face was red, and she was still hitching up her kimono in a very unladylike fashion. The panel slipped, but she caught it before anything was exposed, swearing foully. Himejima-sama wanted to commit _seppuku_ right then - this girl was a certifiable disaster! But Aoshi's eyes narrowed consideringly.

"_Have you made your choice, Hannya?_" he asked his companion.

"_The one in yellow looks good tonight,_" replied the ninja in disguise, turning to his friend. "_See? I don't always like them young..._"

Saru kept herself from gulping audibly and forced her face to form a coquettish smile - something in her gut told her that there was something not quite kosher about these men. However, Hannya raised an eyebrow as he stepped forward and offered her his arm like a gentleman. Since he normally scared people, it was nice when he got to charm one every once in a while - that way she wouldn't protest too much to anything he did. Aoshi, however, was in a different league altogether - he was a predator tonight and he was staring down his prey. Nicole's eyes widened as she looked carefully at the man who stood in front of her - he looked just like the picture in her manga.

_Aoshi..._ she thought, her mind going vague on her again. _Aoshi-sama..._

"_Ah, the Hanabi Gaijin,_" Aoshi said smoothly, regarding Nicole with an appraising stare before turning to address Himejima-sama. "_How much would it be to spend a night with her?_"

Nicole glared - she hated how he was just standing there, casually asking how much he would have to pay to take advantage of her.

"_For you, Shinomori-san, I shall say fifty yen and that is a bargain,_" replied Himejima-sama in an equally smooth voice. "_She is quite a new arrival, you know... You'll be only the second to have her._"

Though he didn't smile, a new light glinted in Aoshi's eyes.

"_Done,_" he said firmly, his voice almost a growl as he pressed fifty yen into the madam's hand.

Nicole didn't stop glaring - if she could resist Souzou, the man she had dreamed of, then she could resist Shinomori Aoshi, her second favorite.

"_Is there anything else you require?_" the madam asked solicitously.

"_Iya. I have everything I need,_" Aoshi said in a voice barely brimming on savage.

"_Very well then,_" said Himejima-sama, gesturing to the hall as she addressed Nicole. "_Nikooru-chan, please show Shinomori-san to a room. There are several open just down the second hall on the left._"

Nicole bowed to Himejima-sama and nodded, not looking at Aoshi as she strode back to the hall. Anger boiled through her as she led the _onmitsu Okashira_ down the main hall. She cracked her neck and knuckles noisily as she turned down the second hall on the left. He wasn't going to get to her, she promised herself. She wouldn't let him - she could get by on spirit and, if things got bad, she could just cry and use the sympathy angle. Aoshi followed her silently, carefully controlling his thoughts - he wouldn't let them run wild, not just yet. He smiled inwardly as Nicole slid the door open with more force than she normally would and let him step inside, snapping the door closed behind them.

"_So you're as spirited as they say you are..._" he said quietly, narrowing his eyes at her. "_Wonderful..._"

"Spirited? I guess you could say that," Nicole said dismissively, staring right back at him. "Back home, people call me Chaos."

A grin curved Aoshi's lips, one that sent cold needles rushing into Nicole's heart - she had seen that smile before, right before he had gone ballistic on Kenshin... But she wasn't going to let him get to her that easy, no way! She cracked her neck again, then her knuckles, and leaned carefully against the wall, watching Aoshi closely. He had taken off the scarf that hid most of his face and was untying the sash around his waist. Nicole clenched her teeth - if she could see Souzou shirtless and resist him, then she could resist Aoshi. She just kept telling herself that, psyching herself up for a fight. She didn't care that he was a ninja and one of the best of them - she would fight him to the death for her purity.

"_Chaos..._" repeated Aoshi, tilting his head down so that he was looking at her through his bangs as he shrugged out of his shirt and let it drop on the floor. "_I like that..._"

Nicole growled and bristled like a cat as he took a few smooth steps towards her and stopped when he was just about two feet away from her. Her hands clenched into fists and she shifted her feet into a fighting stance as best she could - she wasn't a black belt for nothing! Aoshi smiled, a penetrating expression, and stood there for a moment, waiting to see what the girl would do next. She took a deep breath, let it out, and waited for him to try and grab her - if she couldn't hit him, she would just catch his hand and bite him.

"_Hm-hm,_" Aoshi laughed softly, answering her fighting stance with his own. "_So you'll fight me? Fine... Let's see what you can do._"

Nicole refused to let him get to her, but she was beginning to crack - she knew she had a bad temper and she knew that he knew it too.

"_I thought not,_" he said in a satisfied voice, taking another step towards her, just close enough for her to...

"HYAA!" cried Nicole, aiming a roundhouse kick at the side of his knee.

She would have made contact, but his hand was faster, repelling her foot like he was swatting a bug.

"_That's it,_" Aoshi said softly, taking a step back. "_Try again... Hit me again... I know you can do better than that..._"

Nicole growled again - this wasn't the Aoshi she was familiar with... He was acting like... SAITOH! That was it! He was acting like Saitoh!

_Oh... That's right..._ she thought, getting a little desperate. _This is before he gets mixed up with Kanryuu... He's completely emotionless, except when... Oh shit..._

"You're trying to make me attack you so you can knock me down!" she spat at him. "That's really low. I thought you had---"

"_It's not low,_" he cut in. "_It's called strategy._"

"Well I'm not going to and you can't make me!" stated Nicole, not caring if she was being childish.

"_Can't I?_" whispered Aoshi.

In a move so fast she almost couldn't see it, he reached out to take her by the shoulder. Acting purely on reflex, she had brought her leg up for a side kick. However, while she was off-balance, Aoshi had changed the direction of his hand and grabbed hold of her _obi. _Trying to pull away from him, Nicole dodged to the side, but was held fast by his grip. She knew he wanted her to struggle, but she couldn't help playing into his hands - struggling was all she could do! There was no way she was going down without more of a fight than that! She reeled back to kick at him again, but he untied her _obi_ in the blink of an eye and pulled it away from her. Before her kimono could fall open and expose her, he took a step forward, pinning her against the wall with his body.

"Now that really is low," growled Nicole, glowering at him.

"_But it worked,_" quipped Aoshi, running his hand along the off-the-shoulder collar, making fleeting contact with Nicole's skin.

"Aoshi! Don't do this!" cried Nicole, trying to squirm away from him and hold her kimono closed at the same time.

His hand was at her throat in an instant - he didn't care how she knew his name or why, but he would establish one thing, control.

"_You will not use my name until I say I want to hear it,_" he said in a low, dangerous voice.

Nicole was shaking now - her fighting spirit was gone and now she was just in survival mode. She clawed at his hand, whimpering in terror. Tears formed in her eyes and quickly cascaded down her face. Aoshi's face changed from a frown to a neutral expression. In a great show of gentleness, he caressed her cheek, wiping the little drops off and flicking them away - but that was all it was, a show, a bluff. Nicole was almost hyperventilating, shaking under the touch of his hand. Aoshi slid one arm behind her back, pressing her closer to him, and tilted her face up to his with his other hand.

Nicole gasped in fright and tried to turn her head away, but he brought his lips down on hers in a bruising kiss - it was almost not a kiss at all, just him brutally forcing his mouth against hers. The hand that was behind her back was kneading her rear, trying to make her rock against him. Nicole didn't know whether to try and resist him and let him go on with feeling her up or just go along with it and give in. He was biting her lower lip, growling like an animal as he slipped his other hand around to the back of her head to push their mouths together harder. Nicole tasted something bitter and coppery and knew he had bitten her and drawn blood.

Aoshi's breath was coming out harder, though he kept it slow. He could taste her blood as well and had stopped biting her. Now he was licking and sucking the blood from her lip - and her lip was bleeding profusely. Nicole was crying into the terrible imitation of a kiss. Sadly, she thought of what one of the fan fictions she had written back home said - 'It shouldn't hurt... A kiss should never hurt...' She clutched at her kimono with one hand and pushed the other one uselessly against his chest, hoping that by some miracle he would change his mind and stop. Finally, when he could last without breathing not another moment, Aoshi pulled back. Nicole slumped against the wall, blood streaming from her lip and tears streaming from her eyes, with Aoshi's right hand still on her shoulder - the only thing holding her up.

"Please... Stop..." she gasped between sobs, spraying his chest with blood from her lip. "I've never been with a man before and I wanted to wait for marriage!"

"_Little liar,_" Aoshi whispered, wiping the trail of blood from her chin with one finger, then licking it away. "_You've been with one before. Pity I couldn't have you first..._"

"He stopped!" shouted Nicole, still clutching at the front of her kimono, trying to keep it closed. "I don't know why, but he stopped and he promised he wouldn't touch me and he didn't!"

Aoshi grinned, the little pinch of sadism that he kept hidden inside himself coming out to play as he licked her blood from his own lips.

"_You shouldn't have told me that..._" he purred, looking down at her through heavy-lidded eyes.

"No... No!" cried Nicole, shaking her head. "Don't do this to me! I don't know what I'm doing! I can't do what the other girls can do!"

"_You don't have to do anything,_" Aoshi said softly, laying his hand over hers at the collar of her kimono. "_Just relax... If you're good, I might let you enjoy it..._"

Nicole broke down crying, sobbing incoherently. Aoshi took the opportunity to pry her fingers away from the collar of her kimono and pin her arms above her head in a one-handed grip. A shudder trailed down Nicole's spine and it wasn't just from the cold air making contact with her skin. She knew he could break both her wrists in an instant if he wanted to. Aoshi used his other hand to tilt Nicole's face up to his again. Keeping her arms above her head, he lowered both of them down until Nicole was sitting slumped against the wall and he was kneeling in front of her. Murmuring soothing words to her, he stroked her under her chin and kissed her abused lips tenderly.

"_See? All you have to do is lay back,_" he purred to her, carefully lowering her hands and keeping them in his grip. "_Just like this..._"

With a soft smile, he released his hold on her wrists and let her arms fall at her sides. Nicole could no longer support herself, so her body pitched forward and she fell against Aoshi's bare chest. He wrapped strong arms around her and held her close for a moment. Then he slid one arm under her knees, supporting her shoulders with the other, and lifted her off the floor. The futon in the middle of the room looked awfully inviting. He at least bent over at the waist before dropping her on it - Nicole barely flinched when she fell and lifted her head to look up at him in fear and desperation. She pulled her kimono close around her again, trying to preserve what was left of her dignity.

"You can still stop... I know you can," she said quietly, her voice shaking.

_**WARNING: LEMON AHEAD. IF YOU ARE UNDERAGE OR YOU DO NOT LIKE LEMONS, SKIP TO THE NEXT CHAPTER NOW.**_

"_I could,_" agreed Aoshi, standing up straight as his hand strayed to the tie of his pants. "_But I paid for this night. And it's been so long since I've been with a woman, especially a virgin. So I won't._"

His long, slender fingers pulled at the tie of his pants, pulling it loose and letting the garment fall around his ankles, then stepping out of it. Nicole could see his arousal straining against his _fundoshi_ and looked away, blushing furiously all over her body. Aoshi knelt beside the girl's prone form. He slid his arm under her shoulders, getting between her body and her kimono, and lifted her upper body slightly, helping her get her arms out of the sleeves. Carefully, he lifted her up again, sliding the kimono out from under her and laying her down on the futon. Nicole looked up at him with a question in her eyes.

"_Can't get blood on it,_" Aoshi said gruffly.

He laid beside her, on his side, and trailed one hand down her body, between her breasts, down her stomach, and right above her most secret place. Nicole shivered by reflex, mostly out of revulsion. Aoshi's hand came to rest on her left breast, kneading it firmly. She made a small, pained noise as he pinched the little tip hard, and brought her hands up to cover her chest. Aoshi growled a warning and pulled her hands away, sitting up and pinning her wrists over her head again, leaving her open and exposed to his sight and touch. Nicole fought against his grip and drew her knees up to try and cover herself, but he held her fast. She curled up tighter, trying to protect her sensitive breasts when...

"STOP IT NOW!" she screamed, trying her best to kick him and almost succeeding.

Aoshi had tried to touch her secret place. Even with her arms pinned, Nicole wasn't giving up. She knew he could kill her - she didn't care. All she wanted was to protect her chastity. She was swearing loudly, cursing him for what he was doing and cursing herself for every less-than-pure thought she had ever had in her life. Aoshi shifted his weight to try and immobilize her lower body and she managed to slip her left hand out of his grip. Without thinking, she raked her abnormally-long fingernails across his chest, leaving five bloody scratches and getting blood under her nails.

"You're a dirty, disgusting pig..." she spat at him. "You don't deserve Misao!"

Aoshi, who had been about to backhand her across her face, stayed his hand and looked down at her like a man possessed.

"_What do you mean?_" he roared. "_Misao is a child!_"

"Well she won't be a child forever!" yelled Nicole, still trying to kick him. "And when she grows up and she's in love with you, you damn well better treat her like a goddess! It's going to take you a lifetime to make up for the sin you're committing tonight!"

She looked up at him and for the first time, she knew what real hatred was. Her vision was red around the edges and for the first time, she felt the urge to kill. Everything anybody had ever done to her, even those guys at that party who had tried to take advantage of her, she had been able to forgive them. She was able to keep her head on straight and keep her respect for them as people. Tonight, looking Shinomori Aoshi in the eyes - those ice blue eyes - she lost all respect she had ever had for him. She clenched her teeth and laid there, panting from the exertion.

Aoshi looked for a second like he wanted to hit her - so much so that Nicole closed her eyes and braced herself for the impact. Every pounding she had ever taken in her life wouldn't measure up to one blow from Shinomori Aoshi, especially when he was angry. But when the strike she had been expecting never came, she allowed herself to crack her eyes open, looking up at him with her lip trembling and still bleeding. Those ice blue eyes widened and for a moment, all walls fell down and all defenses were gone. They were just a frightened, desperate eighteen-year-old girl and a sixteen-year-old boy with a look in his eyes that said he might cry. It was there for just a moment, then it disappeared. He lowered his hand.

"_What did you say your name was?_" he asked quietly, his manner changing.

"Nicole," she whispered.

"_Then, for what I'm going to do tonight,_" Aoshi said softly, carefully lowering himself over her. "_All I ask is that you forgive me. I'll be quick._"

Nicole started to cry again. Aoshi closed his eyes and leaned closer to her. His tongue flicked out and slid over her lips, soothing the hurt of his bite, then slipped into her mouth. He pressed just a little more firmly, not enough to hurt her again, and moaned against her lips. Tears slipped out of Nicole's closed eyes and she whimpered into the kiss, wishing she were back home, sitting at her computer and reading a nice sappy romance fic. Then again, if she never heard of romance again, she could live a perfectly full life. Aoshi pulled back from her mouth and flicked his tongue over her lower lip again. Then he laid a kiss on her cheek, kissing a tear away.

"_Hold on to me,_" he whispered in her ear, lowering his hips against hers.

Nicole whimpered and tentatively put her hands on his shoulders...

"OW!" she screamed as she felt something tear. "OW! It hurts!"

Aoshi lost himself in the warmth and tightness of her virgin body. The perfect mental and physical control were gone, replaced by a bestial lust with a sort of grace. Nicole cried out as he drew himself back and plunged in deep again. She swore in her mind, if she ever got home, she would never read another romance fic again. They were all lies - even the ones about a couple's first time. There just was no way they could ever capture the pain of that first tear and the following abuse of the female body. What made it so much worse was that she was completely dry from fear and stress. She was sure she was bleeding badly between her legs.

Well, at least the blood was making his thrusts a little smoother. Nicole screwed her eyes shut and prayed that it was all a bad dream. Aoshi was losing control and driving himself into her with bruising force, his powerful hands gripping her waist painfully tightly. Every so often, he would squeeze her or thrust particularly hard, making her cry out in pain. She was screaming for her mother, for her father, for Miku, for Souzou, for Ashley, for anybody who might be able to make the pain stop. Her throat was so raw from her screams and cries that she thought she might be bleeding from there too. Finally, she felt Aoshi's body tense up. She nearly got violently sick when she felt the surge of heat inside her and he collapsed on top of her, sweating, panting, and exhausted.

"I want my mom..." she whimpered out loud. "I wanna go home..."


	10. Crimson Dreamer

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 9

"Crimson Dreamer"

Shinomori Aoshi woke to find a pathetic creature sharing his futon with him. She was curled up in a fetal position under the blanket and was shaking in her sleep. Her hair was now dry, but it was still frizzy, uncombed, and scraggly-looking, and it fell over her face in tangled waves. Aoshi, laying on his side and facing her back, propped himself up on one hand and looked down at what he had awakened with, a feeling of detachment settling over him. His brain was putting together a memory of last night that would be acceptable to him. The memory was mostly of the act itself, about how good it had felt to him. But try as he might, he couldn't shake certain images.

The girl was crying - he had hurt her. Though he tried to push it out of his mind, he couldn't get rid of the picture of her face, streaming with tears and blood from her lip, as she begged him to stop. Trying to stop himself right there - in his life, there was no room for remorse - he replaced the image with one of her swollen lips as he pulled away from her. _Yes, _he tried to tell himself - _last night, I paid for a night with the Fireworks Foreigner and I got what I paid for._ His mind accepted the lie without complaint, but his heart wouldn't give in so easily - it was harder for him to accept that he still had a heart at all.

He frowned as he watched the girl struggle in her sleep - she was in torment over the mere memory of him, was trying to fight him off in her mind, trying to keep last night from happening again. He knew well what it was like to lie at night with traumatic memories. All the terrible things that had a happened to him when he was a child still haunted his dreams if he wasn't careful. Once, he had become very ill, and while Hannya was taking care of him, he became convinced that his friend was one of _them_, come back to hurt him again. He shivered unconsciously at the memory of Hannya shaking him and trying to convince him that he was safe.

_A lifetime..._ he thought, trying to keep regret out of the tone of his thoughts. _A lifetime to make up for..._

Aoshi couldn't form the word "wrong" in his mind. He was trying so hard to convince himself that, though what he had done last night was not exactly _right_, it wasn't going against anything so much that it would be _wrong_. That word, "wrong", was too heavy a term for it. His mind had already accepted that what was done was done and that he was physically none the worse for it, but still his heart struggled with the seriousness of what he had done. Certainly he had been with virgins before, but none of them had cried and pleaded like her. They had all been submissive, if not out and out _willing_ to spend a night with him. Certainly he couldn't blame himself for being with a willing girl or a submissive one!

_But what do you do about the one that fights back?_ his heart asked, prodding him. _The one who tries with everything she has to keep from being touched... What then, Shinomori?_

_Be quiet,_ his mind said to his heart. _She's in a place like this - it was bound to happen eventually. Better me than someone who would have really abused her._

_Oh? Well then who was that with her last night?_ snapped his heart. _Look at her, Shinomori. Just look at her face!_

Before he could stop himself, Aoshi reached over and carefully turned the girl on her back. Her body uncurled itself out of reflex, but her hair remained over her face. Gently, as if touching something that was very fragile, he pushed the auburn locks away and looked down at her. There was still blood in the corners of her mouth and a dried trail of it down her chin, drawing attention to her bruised, swollen lips. Her face was blotchy, pale in some places and red in others, and her eyes were puffy and had swelled up from all her crying. Tears had carried her eyeliner and mascara down her cheeks in greyish-black lines and dried there.

He stared at her in barely-masked horror before he managed to tear his eyes away from her face and look at the rest of her body. Her throat was bruised in the shape of his hand and he noticed that her breath was still catching every once in a while. Trailing his eyes farther down and pulling the blanket back, he saw bruises on her breasts - small bite marks too. He swallowed hard and debated whether or not to pull the cover back any farther. Well, it was just as well that he know what the damage was. Sure enough, there was a hell of a blood stain on the futon and he felt sick, so he yanked the blanket back up to her chin.

_What have I done?_ he thought, horrified.

His mind stepped in, pushed that thought out of the way, and forced him to see the situation through cold, analytical eyes. Was she still in good enough condition that she could work tonight? He knew he didn't have enough extra money to pay the madam for it if she wasn't. Clenching his teeth, he reached over and picked up the scarf that usually hid most of his face from the world. Maybe if he tried to make her look a little better, no one would really check. Then his heart pushed its way into the silent argument. His expression changed and he looked down at the girl as if she were a broken doll or a dead bird, so delicate and heart-rending in her last vestiges of beauty.

"_Forgive me,_" he whispered, for the first time in so long feeling genuine remorse.

His mind and heart seemed to be quite detached now and there was only one thought within him.

_It will take more than one lifetime to make up for this sin... And all my others._

Aoshi pushed conscious thought away, licked a corner of his scarf and started trying to at least get some of the dried blood off the girl's face. Nicole moaned painfully in her sleep and tried to bat his hands away, shifting her head, but since she didn't wake up, he kept trying. He couldn't get it out of the corners of her mouth without waking her, so he started on the trails of eye makeup. It would be hard to get the black kohl off her face without scrubbing hard, but he tried doing it gently and managed to make the trails lighter at least.

To get through to Shinomori Aoshi's sixteen-year-old heart took a lot, but Nicole had done it without even regaining consciousness. For right now, this short time, he was no longer the emotionless, icy-eyed leader of the Oniwabanshuu - he was just a teenage boy genuinely sorry for what he had done. When he had taken off as much of the makeup and blood as he could without waking her, Aoshi allowed himself to stroke Nicole's face. He took in the sensations he had missed the night before - how soft her skin was, how gently she breathed, how her hair felt like silk even when tangled. With his mask broken for now, the sixteen-year old wondered... _What would it be like to kiss her for real?_

Carefully and as gently as he could, trying not to wake the girl or aggravate any injury he might have done to her, Aoshi slid one hand under the girl's thin shoulders. While he wrapped his other arm around her, he slid that hand up to run into her hair and support her head like an infant's. Gingerly, he shifted his position so that she was sort of facing him, supported by his strong arms. Hesitantly, as though afraid he might be doing something wrong again, he brought her up closer to him, tilted her head back, and bowed his head. Her breath tickled his mouth and nose - he could smell blood on her breath and his heart clenched, threatening to break his control.

Tentatively, oh so lightly, he trailed the tip of his tongue along the curve of her lower lip, cursing himself as he tasted her blood again. Fleetingly, he let his lips make contact with hers, pulling back quickly as if he were embarrassed to be kissing her at all. They were so soft, he thought, even though they were swollen, bruised, and probably painful to her. Tenderly, he pressed his mouth against Nicole's, keeping the contact soft and careful. He smiled when he felt her breath catch out of reflex - though her mind was out of it, her body was enjoying the sensations he brought on. She twitched and he pulled back quickly - it was just a twitch, he realized. He closed his eyes, those ice blue eyes, and bowed his head again, loving how perfectly her lips fit against his and gently nudging them apart with his tongue.

Nicole was having the most wonderful dream, where before she had been re-living her worst nightmare over and over again and again. That man... She couldn't form his name in her brain - that would have made it too real and she refused to believe that _he_ had taken advantage of her so brutally. That man had ravaged her body, making it feel like a living, breathing war zone, battle wounds and everything. But now another man was holding her in his arms, comforting her, touching her face gently, kissing her to make the pain go away. A smile twitched at her unconscious lips, then vanished as she sank deeper into the sweet darkness of unreality.

Aoshi, like Souzou, had never experienced a kiss like this. Before it had been about him taking and the girl giving - now he knew how nice it felt to give someone else pleasure. His heart was fully into this, poking at his mind to lose itself in the white bliss too, but his mind was folding its arms and turning up its nose. However, a tiny part of the back of his mind had processed the sensations and technique for later memory. Oh yes, this touch would be burning his lips for days. Sorrow twinged in his heart as he tasted blood in Nicole's mouth and his mind balked at the thought that he had caused it. At that moment, his sixteen-year-old self made a promise that he would make up for it, somehow.

He stroked her tongue with his one last time, made one last pass over the soft curve of her lips, then carefully lifted his mouth from hers. Her face was bereft of expression, but if he'd had to pick one emotion to describe it, he would have had to say that he saw the tiniest hint of longing on her lips. Nicole, of course, _was_ feeling a deep longing, but it was a longing for someone else. She wanted so badly to believe that it was Souzou who was being so gentle with her, that he was soothing the pain in her abused lips, that he was - dare she think it? - loving her... Another unconscious smile curved her lips as her dream man kissed her cheek and laid her down as carefully as he possibly could. Aoshi slipped his hands out from under Nicole's body and took one long last look at her before standing up to put his clothes back on.

As he opened the door, he looked back at her - she was stirring.

----

----

Miku had risen before dawn and was scouring the streets of Edo again - it was now around nine in the morning, considering how far he'd had to walk to get from one side of the city to the other. The night before, he had gotten a tip that a few members of the Sekihoutai were staying at an inn a few blocks from the red-light district. It wasn't much to go on, considering how drunk his informant was at the time, but it was all he had. He could barely read, but he could at least match characters to each other. Looking down at the piece of paper in his hand, he studied the signs and banners lining the street carefully. This had to be the right street, according to the directions he had been given.

"_Here goes nothing,_" he muttered to himself, starting off down the street.

The early shoppers were starting to stare at this young man as though he were something very odd - he was barefoot and kept stopping and staring at things. But Miku didn't notice the people looking at him any more than he cared - which was not at all. He was on a mission and he was going to find the Sekihoutai if it killed him! Finally, he looked at his piece of paper, looked up, and saw a sign that matched it. He couldn't read the _kanji_, but he definitely knew that the shapes on that piece of raggedy paper were exactly like the ones on the sign. Squaring his shoulders, he marched forward and ducked through the _noren_ curtain at the door.

"_Irrashaimase!_" chirped a girl who looked like she was maybe eleven years old. "_Can I help you, sir?_"

"_Hai,_" replied Miku, trying to look a little more cheery than he felt. "_I was told that some soldiers in an army unit known as the Sekihoutai were staying here._"

"_Oh! You mean my brother's friends!_" exclaimed the girl, her face brightening even more. "_Sae! Sae! Go wake up 'nii-chan! There's somebody here who wants to see him!_"

Miku held up his hands, trying to explain that he didn't want to disturb anyone who was sleeping, but the girl had already run off to the back of the place, calling for someone he assumed might be her sister. Well she was just a little bundle of energy early in the morning, he thought rather sourly. He heard a thundering noise and an eleven-year-old who looked just like the other one but was wearing a different kimono showed up. She explained in a very cheerful voice that her _'nii-chan_ had been very drunk last night - seemed to think it was very funny.

"_Tae... Sae..._" growled a male voice. "_If you didn't wake me up for a damn good reason, I'm going to..._"

The young man with the turquoise eyes cut off his sentence as he noticed Miku standing there.

"_Oh..._" he said intelligently. "_Who're you?_"

Miku chose to ignore the rude greeting, brushing it off to the fact that this guy had a hangover.

"_Hasegawa Miku desu,_" he said bowing respectfully - if there was one thing he knew, it was don't piss off anybody with a hangover. "_I was told that part of the Sekihoutai was staying here?_"

Sekihara Touya cracked his knuckles loudly and yawned widely.

"_Yeah, what about it?_" he grunted, scratching his head.

"_Um... I was hoping to join,_" Miku explained.

"_You're gonna want to talk to somebody else about that,_" Touya said in a a grouchy, dismissive voice.

"_Onegai, I need to speak to Sagara Souzou!_" begged Miku, hoping he didn't sound too desperate.

"_Huh?_" another voice cut in as another young man in a sleeping _yukata_ wandered in, having heard his name. "_What did you want to see me about?_"

Miku almost fell over in his haste to turn around and bow, introducing himself again. Souzou looked on in mild amusement as the younger man realized that he was facing in the completely wrong direction and turned around, trying again. Well, whatever the guy wanted, he thought, he was entertaining. He raised an eyebrow as Miku once again introduced himself to a wall and finally decided to give the poor guy a clue - he coughed politely. Miku did a complete three-sixty and then some, spinning awkwardly and falling over.

"_Erm... I know I haven't made the best first impression here---_" he said hastily, figuring it was safer to stay on the floor.

"_No kidding, genius,_" groused Touya.

"_Shut it, you,_" Souzou snapped at his hung-over friend.

"_--- but I was hoping to join the Sekihoutai!_" Miku finished, flustered and embarrassed. "_Y'see, I've done something I really regret and I was told---_"

Touya rolled his turquoise eyes, stepped over, and hauled Miku to his feet by the back of his _gi_.

"_Save it,_" he interrupted, shaking his head at the younger man.

"_Touya, go on,_" Souzou said in a grouchy voice. "_You're hung-over and you don't need to be dealing with people._"

The raven-haired man turned to Miku and bowed.

"_You'll have to pardon my friend,_" he said apologetically. "_He was very drunk last night._"

"_So I heard,_" commented Miku.

"_Alright! Alright! I'm going!_" Touya exclaimed belligerently.

"_Now, did I hear correctly that you would like to join us?_" Souzou asked politely, ignoring the blue-black-haired man as he stormed from the room, cursing.

Miku nodded.

"_All right, well we're going to have to get you outfitted,_" said Souzou, his tone agreeable. "_You'll need to come back to our camp with us - after we've all dressed of course. Tae? Would your parents mind terribly if Hasegawa-san dined with us this morning at breakfast?_"

"_I don't see any reason why,_" said one of the eleven-year-old girls. "_I'll just put it on your tab._"

Souzou nodded as Tae scampered off to help with breakfast.

"_Oh, pardon me, I haven't introduced myself,_" he said abruptly. "_Watashi wa Sagara Souzou desu._"

"_Er... I know,_" said Miku, bowing awkwardly.

----

----

Nicole had opened her eyes just at the wrong moment - she saw his face and cold reality formed a huge icy lump in her stomach. She didn't scream - she couldn't scream. She was too busy pressing her hand over her mouth. In a hurry, she grabbed her kimono, tossed it on and belted it quickly, running from the room. That icy lump in her stomach had melted and now it just felt like putridly warm water sloshing around. She tripped several times and almost fell, but she managed to reach the back door and get out into the courtyard. Two seconds later, she doubled over and threw up.

"It was real..." she said brokenly. "It was real!"

She would have fallen to her knees, but she caught herself and headed straight for the place that was quickly becoming her sanctuary around here - the bath house. Not caring if the bath was hot, cold, lukewarm or whatever, she threw the door open and slammed it shut behind her. As it turned out, apparently some of the girls who were early risers had gotten the fire started under the bath house and the bath was steaming hot. Nicole threw her kimono down in the changing alcove and headed in to grab a bucket and washcloth.

The warm water was both soothing and painful, seeming to penetrate deep into her joints, drawing out the hurt, amplifying it for a moment, then washing it away. She cringed as she washed her intimate place - of all she had been through, she hurt there worst of all. Her stomach felt queasy again as she washed traces of his presence away, her blood and his... She couldn't think the word - it disgusted her and she thought she might be sick again. But there was nothing left for her to throw up, so she just swallowed hard, finished washing her body, and started on her hair.

The scent of lavender swirled around her as she poured a generous amount of the oil on her hair and started combing it through. She had naturally oily hair, but for some reason, the lavender oil helped. Once it was combed evenly and thoroughly through her hair, she reached for the shampoo. She couldn't really describe the scent of the shampoo - she just knew that it smelled good and that massaging her own scalp was soothing. Taking a deep breath, she held her nose with one hand and up-ended the water bucket over her head with the other. Then she wiped the water away from her eyes and fumbled for the conditioner. That was done easily enough and combed through once again. She rinsed in a hurry, bent over and flipped her hair so that she could tie it in a knot on top of her head, and got into the bath as fast as she could.

----

She stayed in the bath for four hours and fifteen minutes.

----

Miku wasn't faring too well either. Breakfast with three hung-over members of the Sekihoutai and their, thankfully sober, captain had been a mess. Touya and Kyo immediately started getting on each other's nerves like a pair of middle school boys, poking each other and swearing at each other. Kyo didn't want to share rice balls early in the morning and rice balls were just about the only thing Touya's stomach would tolerate - that didn't end well. Miku had sat there like a stone through the entire meal, picking at his food. He had tried to start a conversation with Souzou, but Souzou was too busy restraining Touya while Reichi held Kyo back.

"_So... about me joining the Sekihoutai..._" he said finally, breaking into the chaos with his soft, nervous voice.

----

----

That night, an eighteen-year-old boy closed his amber eyes and sharply flicked off the drops of blood that remained on his blade. The night wind blew his hair back, revealing his youthful face. Once night fell, no one who saw that face would live to tell about it. That boy was the assassin in the shadows - the infamous hitokiri, Himura Battousai. He sheathed his blade in one smooth stroke, not even having to look at it, and stalked out to the street. Edo's rich district was quiet - there was no sign of violence left behind, because there was nobody to see it. Inside the large house though, rich crimson liquid still dripped down the walls. The boy took a deep breath, clearing his senses of the smell of blood, and headed off to wait at the assigned point.

_I wonder what they want this time,_ he thought vaguely.

He leaned against the wall that surrounded another large manor house, staying in the shadows and out of the light of the full moon. His ears were perked up and each of his senses was perfectly alert. His sensitive skin tingled with the touch of the wind, which also carried the clear smell of the night to his nose. Those amber eyes were constantly scanning the horizon in all directions, wondering which road it would come from. He hoped it would at least be on time tonight - it was about time he got a decent meal and a warm place to stay for a night. And if that warm place to stay included a woman, he wouldn't mind one bit.

Unblinkingly, his eyes continued skimming over the horizon, first in one direction, skimming across, then in reverse, doing the same thing. The wind blew his red hair into his face - he ignored it 'til it obstructed his vision, then he swore and brushed it away irritably. Annoyingly, the wind blew his bangs back into his face and he pushed them away again, growling uselessly at it - he still hadn't completely learned to control his temper. As if playing a game with him, the wind changed its direction and blew all his hair up in his face from behind. It reminded him of someone he knew a long time ago, deliberately annoying him.

----

On a mountain somewhere near Kyoto, a potter wearing a red and white mantle sneezed. Once. Twice.

"_Heh heh... Yeah, I'm just that great,_" he said to himself.

----

----

The eighteen-year-old swore under his breath as he sneezed once, cursing whoever was thinking about him - it never occured to him that they might be thinking something good. But then again, since when had Seijuurou Hiko ever thought anything good about him? The boy's mood was rapidly going sour and he felt like slicing something in half just to release some anger and tension. In fact, his hand was on his sword's handle and he was preparing to take out a nearby fence post when it rolled up and surprised him - a carriage. He swore again - he hated being taken by surprise.

"_Easy there, boy,_" chuckled the man in the brown Western suit. "_You'll get your chance to vent some anger later. Tomorrow night if I've got everything worked out right._"

Himura scowled and hauled himself into the carriage, sitting with his sword across his lap - whenever the government officials took that tone, that patronizing tone, it always led to something he didn't like.

"_So where are we going?_" he asked in an almost-belligerent voice, trying to maintain an edge of civility.

The man in the suit, Yotsuba Ranmaru, chuckled patronzingly again - Himura felt like he was being patted on the head and growled like an angry dog.

"_To a place I think you'll like,_" Yotsuba said, looking at the boy fondly. "_Ever heard of Himejima Kiyoko?_"

"_Can't say that I have..._" Himura replied in a disinterested voice, looking out the window of the carriage boredly.

"_Ah... Well I think you'll like her,_" Yotsuba assured him.

"_I don't like anybody,_" growled Himura.

"_You wait 'til you meet her, boy,_" retorted Yotsuba in a jovial manner. "_And some of her girls._"

----

----

Nicole was back in the bath. She had been dragged out and told to eat something, but she couldn't keep anything down, so she had gone back to the bath house. Sniffling, sweating, and crying were about all she could do without being sick again. Her mind kept raking her across the coals of last night. Why couldn't he have been like the Aoshi she read about in romantic fan fictions? Why did he have to be so... uncaring? _Oh..._ her mind said, _he doesn't care about anything yet, not about anything but fighting._ She shook herself mentally again - if she was to survive in a cold, uncaring place like this, she would have to leave all her romantic notions behind her.

_I'm just a silly little girl who can't hide behind her fantasies anymore,_ she thought angrily.

She took a deep breath, held her nose, closed her eyes tight, and sank down as far as she could under the surface of the hot water. In some bizzare back part of her mind, she felt a twinge of amusement, recalling a similar scene that involved her favorite red-haired rurouni and a pissed-off raccoon girl. But the bigger part of her mind pushed that thought away, remembering how miserable she was right now. She wanted so badly to sink down into the world of her fantasies, just like the hot water, immerse herself completely, and never rise back out of it.

Back home, whenever she had a bad day, whenever people treated her particularly badly, she always had that world to escape in. In that world, she knew all the people and they all loved her and wanted to protect her. She would go sit in front of her computer and get lost in staring at Souzou's picture. Having his smile to come home to, knowing that he would be there for her to say "good night" to, gave her a boost even on her worst days. She was running out of breath and was wondering if maybe she should just drown herself. Her brain screamed and she pushed herself up out of the water - she had known what it was like to drown and she wasn't eager to repeat the experience.

"I wanna go home," she panted, trying to get air into her lungs but at the same time trying to let it out.

She squeezed the hot water out of the knot of hair on top of her head and leaned back against the side of the bath tub, up to her shoulders in the water. In her mind, she was trying to be firm with herself, telling herself to put her fantasies aside and resign herself to the coldness of reality. Not every story has a happy ending, she told herself. As much as she would like to believe otherwise, more stories ended sad than happy. Somehow, though, she had always wanted to believe that her story would be one of the rare ones to end happily. She had done everything she could to make that happen - she kept smiling every day, trying to find the best in people, trying to believe that good things would happen to her.

"_Nikooru-chan?_" came a soft, musical voice, its owner Komagata Yumi stepping into the bath house quietly. "_You're going to have to come out of there eventually. It's two in the morning._"

"Go away," answered Nicole, feeling her mood flat-lining, then taking a dive for the worst.

"_Don't you get an attitude with me,_" snapped Yumi - then her manner changed. "_Mind if I hop in too? I'll keep my towel on._"

"I don't care what you do," groused Nicole, looking off in the other direction.

"_Listen, I heard what happened last night,_" Yumi said softly, getting into the bath. "_We all did. It went without saying that you were a virgin when you got here, but... I've seen a lot happen - I've been here since I was about thirteen - but I've never heard a girl put up as much of a fight as you._"

"So? What about it?" asked Nicole, her mood still sour.

"_We're all proud of you,_" said Yumi in a firm, clear voice. "_None of us would have ever had the nerve to stand up to Shinomori Aoshi like that. And we heard what happened between you and Sagara. How did you make him stop?_"

"Well... I'm not really sure myself," admitted Nicole, her brow furrowing. "I just... Told him 'no'. And I kept repeating myself until he stopped."

"_That's incredible..._" Yumi said in awe. "_And he listened?_"

"Well, I did kind of slap him," Nicole said, sort of embarrassed.

"_You WHAT?_" shrieked Yumi. "_You're an idiot! Don't you know what would have happened if he had gone to Himejima-sama?_"

Nicole shrugged - she was used to being called an idiot. Yumi was amazed, disgusted, and bewildered.

"Well, if nobody's done that before, there can't be a precedent, can there?" Nicole asked fearlessly, grinning her old Chaos grin - the one that everbody back home had learned to be wary of.

"_Do you want to set one?_" demanded Yumi, brandishing a fist at Nicole.

Nicole's grin faltered slightly, but she pulled it back up with greater vehemence.

"I've always been ahead of my time," she said, the arrogance of Chaos rising in her - when she got like that, people would do better to stay inside before she got another bright idea. "I kind of like the idea of stirring up some trouble in this little closed-off hell of a world."

"_You're the stupidest, craziest... and bravest girl I've ever seen,_" Yumi said finally, impressed.

"So are you with me?" asked Nicole, striking a dramatic pose while keeping herself decently underwater.

"_Sorry, Niki-chan,_" Yumi said apologetically. "_You're the only one around here with that kind of nerve. I say good luck to you though. And you can count on me to keep your secret._"

"Thank you," Nicole said in her sincerest voice - her strength was back, though her body was still sore, and the girl called Chaos was about to crash straight into the world of Japanese bordellos. "Watch out world, Chaos is back and born to raise hell!"

A manic grin spread over the American girl's face and she grabbed a towel, wrapping it around herself as she hopped out of the bath, leaving Yumi slightly frightened.


	11. Elite Warriors

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 10

"Elite Warriors"

"_Hajime, we're about two hours from Edo, you know,_" said a young man with wide brown eyes and a short brown ponytail.

"_Aa. We'll stop there for a few nights,_" replied the amber-eyed man. "_But get the men to halt. It won't do to barge into the city in broad daylight._"

Okita Soushi nodded and turned around, coughing slightly, to address the group of men behind him and the other captain of the Shinsengumi.

"_We'll be stopping here until sunset,_" he informed them, recieving grunts and other sounds of disagreement from the men in the distinctive blue and white _gi_.

----

----

Nicole had been shut in her room since three in the morning, when she got out of the bath. It was now a little while before sunset and Yumi and Saki were starting to get worried. What was she doing in there? they wondered. Yumi raised a fist and banged on the door, but it had been jammed shut somehow. Saki screeched at the closed door, as if that would make it open by itself. Toriko was about to kick the door down, but Saru was restraining her. Arisu, the mega-bitch, was adding her snide commentary, saying that she wouldn't be surprised if a _gaijin_ couldn't live in a place like this. She kept implying that she thought Nicole may have killed herself.

"_Fuck off, Inu-Yasha_," snapped Toriko, cracking her knuckles menacingly.

Saru rolled her bright green eyes and used a full nelson to continue restraining Toriko. However, she couldn't do anything to stop the Tomo look-alike swearing violently at the top of her lungs. Everyone was starting to get a headache from listening to Toriko's screeching curses and Saki really needed to change for work. Yumi, wisely, kept quiet - she wasn't going to break her promise to Nicole to keep her secret. She had a good idea of what the girl might have done, but she kept her thoughts to herself and put her effort into acting like she was seriously annoyed.

"_I'm really getting worried,_" fretted Saki, fiddling with her fingers nervously. "_What if Inu--- I mean, Arisu's right?_"

"_That's it! I'm breaking it down!_" bellowed Toriko.

Saru tightened her grip, but Toriko pushed off the floor and did a sort of jump kick that sent the door crashing every which way in splinters.

"_Brilliant..._" said Arisu, rolling her eyes.

"_Inu-Yasha, you can shut it!_" snapped Saki, her voice taking on a dangerous edge - it wasn't a good idea to get Nakajo Saki angry.

"_Why you little brat!_" spluttered Arisu, rising to her feet and looming over the younger girl.

"_Bitch fight!_" cried Toriko, trying to squirm her way out of Saru's grip.

"_Shit!_" cried Yumi.

Everyone quieted down at once. Komagata Yumi didn't swear - she just didn't!

"_What is it?_" Saru asked timidly, unable to see into the room over Toriko's head.

"_Nikooru's gone!_" yelped Saki. "_Look!_"

The paper had been torn out of one of the _shoji_ panels and a futon had been messily pulled over the hole - it hadn't stayed up too well, obviously. Nicole, her kimono, her cape, and her shoes (which she had saved secretly) were all gone - if the wall panel hadn't been broken, the girls would have all thought she had just disappeared without a trace. Shit, as Yumi had put it, was right - when Himejima-sama found Nicole gone, not to mention the damage to her wall... None of them could stand to think of what might happen to Nicole, but they were more afraid for themselves, Yumi, Saru and Arisu most of all. They had each made Himejima-sama angry at one point and they knew what it was like. Nicole would be luckier to be caught by another trader rather than be caught by Himejima-sama's bounty hunters.

Saru especially knew what it was like for Nicole. She had run away when she was about fifteen and had almost managed to get to a decent area of town before two of them caught up with her. Even to get that far, she had been extremely lucky - she had escaped just like Nicole, on the spur of the moment and without a plan. She swallowed hard as she remembered those rough men and how they had treated her - and she hadn't even fought back. A sick feeling clenched in her stomach as she thought about what they might do to Nicole. Given the events of the previous night, it was almost guaranteed that the plucky American girl wouldn't hesitate to put up a fight.

The girls all looked around at each other, none of them knowing what to say or how to say it - to break the silence would be like all of them betraying Nicole. She had done what very few of them had dared even think about - she had taken her freedom and even if it didn't even last the night, she would have the spirit to do it again. The lines on Saru's back from that night so long ago had faded physically, but tonight her mind could feel them throbbing. Toriko shivered as she remembered one night when she had almost worked up the nerve to make a break for it. Even Arisu was shifting uncomfortably, not wanting to say anything.

"_Girls, what happened?_" asked an elegant, musical voice. "_I heard a crash._"

"_Nice going, Toriko-baka,_" drawled Arisu, rolling her eyes heavenward.

Himejima-sama's brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed as she looked at the Tomo look-alike.

"_Toriko-chan, what have you done?_" she asked sternly.

Toriko shook her head, not willing to answer - she would buy Nicole some time.

"_The door was stuck,_" Saki said quickly - a little too quickly.

"_So I gathered,_" the madam said dryly. "_But don't try to tell me that at least one of you didn't have the good sense to... What's that?_"

She gestured angrily over the wrecked door at the futon piled against the wall and the white rice paper flapping uselessly in the night wind.

"_It's the gaijin girl, isn't it?_" she asked in a silky voice, her eyes flashing dangerously. "_Open up. Where did she go?_"

Five defiant faces stared up at the elegantly-dressed madam, each one of them saying the same thing without words - "Make us." Himejima-sama's jaw clenched almost unnoticeably, then she relaxed, reminding the girls of the man who had hurt Nicole last night. The girls refused to give in - they hadn't known Nicole very long, but she was one of their own and they would protect her however they could. Nicole represented hope to them - if she could make it, with their help, then maybe, one day, each of them could steal away to freedom as well. The madam was getting angrier - her expression was unchanging, but they could feel the emotion radiating from her. Himejima-sama swallowed hard and forced her face into a patronizing smile.

"_Which one of you will tell me?_" she asked in a sugar-coated voice. "_The first one to open up gets a week off. If you all tell me together, I'll let you all have the week off! Toriko-chan?_"

Toriko's face didn't change, but she drew herself up a little higher and stared at her mistress in continued defiance.

"_Saki-chan?_"

"_No,_" growled Saki, threatening to go off the deep end.

Himejima-sama slapped the seventeen-year-old across her face before she could even blink, but the girl just glared at her.

"_Yumi-chan?_" the madam asked sweetly, appealing to the oldest of the group.

"_Sorry,_" replied Yumi in a hard voice, her green-lipsticked mouth a thin line.

Yumi was backhanded across her face, but refused to reel with the blow - she just sat there, straight and still as a picture, with a red hand print throbbing on her cheek.

"_Saru?_" asked the madam, not even bothering with an honorific for the girl who had no name.

"_Beat me again and see what happens!_" snapped the girl with the short purple hair and fierce green eyes.

"_Easily arranged,_" Himejima-sama said darkly.

Saru pushed herself to her feet and drew herself up to her full height - by the standards of the day, she was an Amazon at five foot six.

"_I'm not fifteen years old anymore, Himejima-SAMA,_" she said threateningly.

"_Ah... It appears the only one left is my dear Arisu-chan,_" said the madam in a falsely sweet voice - she was playing her trump card, Arisu's sycophantic nature.

Arisu was starting to crack - she had a low threshold for pain and she wasn't looking forward to being slapped, backhanded, or in any other way beaten.

"_Ano... Eeto... Um... Erm..._" she stumbled over the sounds, trying to steal some time both for Nicole and herself.

"_Come on, out with it!_" exclaimed Himejima-sama.

"_Everybody, I'm sorry, I just can't hold on like you!_" Arisu burst out, falling at the madam's feet on her knees. "_I don't know where she went, but it was the gaijin girl, just like you said!_"

She fell on her side, crying pathetically.

"_Nice going, Inu-Yasha,_" growled Toriko. "_Don't think you're coming back in our room._"

She marched into the room she shared with Saru and came back with Arisu's futon, which she dumped on the floor - Saru nodded approvingly.

"_You're really low,_" snarled Saki, two seconds away from snapping entirely and trying to kill someone.

"_Now now, girls,_" interrupted Himejima-sama in that same sugary voice. "_Arisu-chan has done the right thing in telling me. At least she'll be eating for the next three days._"

That was it for Saki - the seventeen-year-old girl screamed like a banshee and launched herself at the madam, stepping on Arisu in the process. Toriko, who had been seconds away from doing something like that TO Arisu, for once kept her head on straight and started trying to restrain the younger girl. Saki just scratched the hell out of her arm and shot out for Himejima-sama again, teeth and nails bared. Anger lent the young girl speed and power - she scratched wildly at the sleeves of the madam's elegant kimono and eventually managed to bite one of her hands until she drew blood.

"_FOR GOD'S SAKE, DO SOMETHING ABOUT HER!_" shrieked the madam, trying to shield her face with her arms.

"_Saki, I'm sorry about this!_" cried Saru, hooking her arm around the younger girl's neck in a choke hold.

The madam beat a hasty retreat, looking back at the three girls trying to restrain Saki and at Arisu, still crying on the floor.

_That Saki brat is going to regret the day she was born,_ she thought savagely.

----

----

Nicole was running as fast as she could through the back alleys of the red-light district of Edo. She had pulled her kimono up over her shoulders like a lady would and had her cape over that for added protection in the dark. Her memories of the street was vague, but she could remember the stalls she had stopped at with Miku. Maybe if she just got that far, she could take the main road and... No... She couldn't go back to Miku's village - she would just be returned and probably in worse condition all over for it. In her mind she was cursing as she forced her feet to keep running. Why... OH WHY hadn't she spent more time trying to teach herself _kanji_? She could read _hiragana_ well enough, though she didn't know what most of the words meant - she could still sound them out. But not a one of the signs around here seemed to be in _hiragana_!

She had gotten away from the establishment what felt like hours ago. It was well after sunset and she had the constellation Orion to guide her - even across time, he was her guardian. Finally, she came to what looked like a fairly decent inn and restraunt and ducked in through the _noren_ curtain. She skidded to a halt in the entrance way and fell to her knees as she tried to keep her shoes from making contact with the _tatami_. The occupants of the building didn't stop what they were doing to look at her, but a friendly-looking boy near the front desk waved her over. He looked sort of like Heero Yuy, only much less threatening - the cobalt eyes glittered merrily in the the lamp light instead of staring like stones.

"_Irrashaimase!_" he called jovially. "_What brings you here, Jou-chan?_"

Nicole scrambled to get her shoes off and tripped on her way over to the boy - he caught her easily and both of them blushed.

"I'm sort of in trouble here," she explained, trying to word things carefully - she couldn't let him know what she was.

"_Anything I can help with?_" the boy asked in concern.

"I just need a place to stay tonight," Nicole said softly. "But I don't have any way to pay for it."

"_Ah, that's alright!_" he assured her. "_If you can help out in the restraunt, you'll have earned yourself a place for the night._"

"Oh thank you!" exclaimed Nicole, throwing her arms around the boy and hugging him hard.

"_Ow! Hey, easy!_" he yelped. "_I don't even know your name, missy._"

"Er... I'm sorry. It's Nicole," she introduced herself, bowing politely.

"_Boku wa Nakajo Izumi,_" he said, his speech informal and masculine.

"Nakajo?" asked Nicole, wondering if she should pursue the matter.

"_Hai. Is there something strange about my name?_" Izumi asked politely.

"Do you have a sister?" Nicole blurted out in a rush.

Izumi looked like he had swallowed a lemon, or bitten into a clove of garlic, or done something equally distasteful.

"_No,_" he said in hard voice. "_Not anymore._"

So it was true - Saki's family really was nearby. Oh shit! This was bad! Her father was the one who had sold her off - if he thought he could get a good enough price, Nicole knew she would be right back where she started. And if that happened, she would definitely come off it worse for the wear. Izumi looked at her curiously as her expression changed from disbelief to shock to horror to sadness and back again. He looked closely at her strange clothes - sure she was wearing a kimono, but what the hell was that thing she had over it?

"Oh, I always wear this thing," Nicole said rather nervously, having noticed him looking at her cape. "It's warm."

"_Ah, I see,_" said Izumi, wanting very much to change the subject. "_Should we just get to the kitchen? More important, can you cook?_"

"Not very well," admitted Nicole. "But I can wait tables or be a hostess if you like!"

"_I think we can work with that,_" Izumi said agreeably. "_Don't you want to take that... whatever it is... off?_"

Nicole froze, but it would look really weird to walk around with the thing on in the restraunt - graciously, she let him help her out of it.

"_There we go... Wait..._" the boy said suspiciously. "_I recognize that kimono! You're a---_"

"Please! Don't say anything!" begged Nicole. "I can't go back there... She'll kill me... And I have to get home! I don't want to die here!"

"_I'm afraid I can't be the one to decide this,_" Izumi said sadly, laying a supportive hand on Nicole's shoulder. "_I'm sorry, but I'll have to get my father._"

"Please Izumi---" Nicole continued, her voice rising in volume.

"_Shh!_" he hissed. "_There are dangerous people here. Saitoh Hajime and Okita Soushi, the third and first captains of the Shinsensgumi..._"

"SAITOH HAJI---" screeched Nicole.

"_Baka!_" snapped Izumi, clapping a hand over Nicole's mouth. But it was too late - the damage had been done.

"_Let the girl speak,_" said a teasing voice. "_If she has that big a mouth on her, maybe what she has to say is worth hearing!_"

The man with the narrow amber eyes laughed at his own humor but Izumi held Nicole fast. Nicole's eyes widened for a moment, then she started struggling and trying to pry Izumi's hand away from her mouth. No one could really tell what she was trying to say, but they could figure out it had some pretty strong words in it. Saitoh Hajime was laughing again, but this time he was laughing at Nicole. If there was one thing besides dirty fighting and animal abusers that Nicole Barrington couldn't stand, it was being laughed at. She mumbled a muffled apology and bit Izumi's hand just hard enough to make him let go of her, which he did, swearing.

"I don't really have anything to say to you," Nicole said to Saitoh, trying to keep the edge off her voice. "I was just rather surprised to find out you were here."

"_Well, it seems someone needs to be taught manners,_" replied Saitoh, his voice smooth and still teasing. "_But I don't fight women and children - and you seem to qualify as both._"

Nicole took that in and got all flustered again.

"Hey! I'm not a kid, you know!" she snapped. "I'm eighteen years old, for crissakes! EVERYBODY seems to think that I'm a KID and I'm NOT!"

Saitoh raised an eyebrow and looked at the girl with a rather bored expression.

"_Well you could have fooled me,_" he said dryly.

"_Nikooru-san, please!_" begged Izumi. "_Don't antagonize him! We don't have the money to fix everything up if you make him angry!_"

Saitoh waved off the boy's pleas like flies.

"_I find this girl rather amusing, Nakajo-kun,_" he said, his voice now obviously covering up something. "_I'd ask how much but I don't think that's the kind of place your father is running here, ne?_"

Izumi bit his lip and turned bright red - Nicole couldn't stand seeing other people get picked on, so of course she blew up.

"That's enough, Saitoh!" she said angrily, her face darkening as well. "That kind of humor is taking it too far - for both of us!"

Izumi's eyes widened - this girl wasn't about to say what he thought she was about to, was she? He knew where she was from - the same place his sister was. He was getting desperate. _Oh man,_ he thought. _If my father walks in here and sees all this, he'll either disown me or sell me off too!_ Neither of these options was he particularly keen on, so he gestured to Nicole, who was standing on a vacant table preparing to shout at Saitoh. She didn't see him waving his hands around, trying to catch her eye - she was just concerned with telling Saitoh where to get off. The other restraunt patrons had quietly stopped eating and talking so that they could watch this girl telling off the third captain of the Shinsengumi. They weren't even sure at whose expense they were getting their entertainment at - if asked, they would have said the girl. None of them were drunk enough or stupid enough to piss off Saitoh Hajime.

"_And what would you know about this kind of humor, my girl?_" asked Saitoh, trying to trip Nicole's brain - however, living by the seat of her pants as she always did had taught her to think on her feet.

"I can't help it if I hear things!" she shot back, trying to look scandalized and put-upon. "I wouldn't know if men weren't always talking about it!"

"_Looks like we have a feminist here,_" Saitoh said to Okita, pointing at Nicole as if she were a dog.

"Damn straight!" countered Nicole, drawing herself up.

"_Izumi, what is going on in---_" a large, muscular man's voice demanded as he barged out of the kitchen and got one look at Nicole. "_Get down from there!_"

Izumi, who was almost crying in embarrassment and frustration, bowed wearily to his father and just made a vague gesture at Nicole and Saitoh - he wanted to go and bang his head on the hardwood cutting board. Nicole giggled nervously and hopped down from the table. Her foot caught in the hem of her kimono and she narrowly missed another Janet Jackson moment as she fell flat on her rear. Nakajo-san, Izumi and Saki's father, was not amused and once more he demanded to know what was going on. Nicole looked furiously at Saitoh, who smirked back at her, then looked defeatedly at the floor - she knew she wasn't getting any further tonight. Well, it was one small step forward and soon she would be back at square one.

"_Otou-san... This is Nikooru... I don't know her surname,_" Izumi offered weakly.

"Barrington," Nicole filled in automatically.

"_Quiet, you,_" barked Nakajo-san, pointing a threatening finger at Nicole and turning back to his son. "_Izumi, what is that girl doing here? And who is she? I don't like the look of her._"

"Don't I get to tell my side of the story?" demanded Nicole, still sitting on the floor.

"_Nikooru... Seriously... Be quiet,_" Izumi said quietly, wishing he could protect Nicole without seriously pissing off his father.

For once in her eighteen years of life, Nicole Barrington did the right thing and kept her trap shut, though she kept one wary eye on Saitoh.

"_Izumi, look at that kimono!_" blustered the father, pointing at Nicole with a butcher knife and making her queasy. "_You know good and well what she is! What in the hell is she doing mucking up our fine service establishment?_"

"Hey, I don't like this kimono either!" added Nicole, trying to stand up for herself. "But at least I'm decent!"

"_I thought we told you to shut up,_" growled Nakajo-san, brandishing the butcher knife threateningly.

Everyone's attention shifted away from the angry father and unfortunate son as Saitoh Hajime rose to his feet and crossed the room in a few smooth strides - he stopped to pat Nicole on the head, then turned to Nakajo-san.

"_Pardon me, Nakajo-san,_" he said politely, bowing a little. "_But if you're meaning what I think you are, I think I may be able to help you out. You see, I am heading for a certain area of town just as soon as I finish eating._"

"_How much do you want for your trouble?_" Nakajo-san asked gruffly.

"_Consider it a personal favor, my good friend,_" insisted Saitoh, looking back at Nicole with a different gleam in those narrow amber eyes. "_You could say I've taken a liking to her._"

Nakajo-san understood what Saitoh was saying, Izumi looked as though he might faint, Nicole was frozen in fear, and Saitoh just seemed to think the whole business was rather amusing. He caught Nicole's eye and gave her a naughty wink, making her gulp as if she were about to be sick. Satisfied at getting a rise out of the girl, Saitoh turned back to Nakajo-san with what, coming from him, was a pleasant smile on his face. So the restraunt owner bowed and gave Saitoh the information on where he figured Nicole had come from. Saitoh's pleasant smile turned into a predatory grin as his mind started to get ahead of him and he bowed in thanks for the information.

"_Then consider your dinner on us,_" pressed Nakajo-san, refusing to hear a word of argument.

"_Arigatou gozaimasu, Nakajo-san,_" replied Saitoh. "_Very generous of you._"

He turned to Nicole and said "_Come along_", not offering a hand to help her up - not that she had expected that much in the way of courtesy from Saitoh Hajime. The amber-eyed man took hold of the collar of Nicole's kimono and pulled her along like a dog as he strode over to Okita. Okita Soushi coughed a little harshly and helped himself to more green tea as he listened to his friend and comrade, preoccupied with other things. _Oh, was that something about meeting somewhere later?_ he thought vaguely. _Himejima?_ _I suppose I can find it later. _He nodded politely in Saitoh's general direction and absentmindedly agreed to meet him a little later.

"_Soushi... Soushi?_" asked Saitoh, thumping his friend on the head. "_You got that, right?_"

Okita nodded again, this time with a little more commitment, and Saitoh nodded back, satisfied.

"_Come on,_" he said gruffly to Nicole, pulling her along by her collar again.

"Hey, hey!" protested Nicole, clawing at his hand. "I can walk on my own, you know."

"_Be quiet,_" ordered Saitoh and before Nicole could say another word, he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, heading out the door.

"YOU LET ME DOWN RIGHT NOW!" screeched Nicole, making everyone in the building cringe for the sake of their poor, abused ear drums as she tried to kick Saitoh or hit a pressure point in his back with her elbow, whichever came first. "I MEAN IT!"

"_Hai, hai, I know,_" Saitoh replied in a silky voice. "_But I also mean it when I say be quiet, and it's my word that counts in this case._"

Nicole screeched even louder, swearing in Saitoh's ear and flailing her arms around. He just drew his arm tighter around her legs and patted her rear. Now that time, she did manage to catch him a good blow to the back of his head with her elbow - and she had bony elbows. Saitoh rolled his eyes and gave her rear a pinch, just to get on her nerves, drawing a sound from her that almost resembled an alley cat's howl. Nicole was very unhappy by that point - and when Nicole Barrington was unhappy, she let everybody know it, loud and clear. Well, at least it was loud and clear until they went deaf. She kept screaming, yelling "fire", "rape", "help", and everything else she could think of.

_You'd think she'd get it by now and give up,_ Saitoh's irritated mind groused.

It turned out Nicole had not managed to get very far away from the red-light district at all, because before she knew what hit her, she was smelling strong sake and hearing the noise of the crowded street again. Saitoh was scanning the signs and banners lining the street, trying to find the one that just said "Lady Himejima" on it. This process was made slightly more difficult by Nicole, who had figured out how to elbow the back of his head repeatedly. He wondered vaguely if she would knock him cross-eyed before he found the place. Finally, he found a place that looked likely - the rice paper on one of the far wall panels had been kicked out and the shreds flapped in the wind. All he'd had to do was look for the place that looked like it had recently weathered a disaster. It didn't take someone very smart to figure out that a girl like Nicole left destruction in her wake.

"_Welcome home,_" he said sarcastically as he ducked in the door and dropped Nicole on the floor.

"Yeah yeah, thanks a lot," Nicole replied grimly, muttering 'jerk' under her breath. "What are you hangin' around for? Have you not annoyed me enough?"

"_Charming girl,_" drawled Saitoh, rolling his eyes again. "_Why did you run away anyway? All you would have had to do would be keep on with that mouth of yours and you'd have been thrown out in a few days._"

"You know, Saitoh, I really don't need this now," snapped Nicole. "And why are you still here?"

"_This is a gentlemen's establishment,_" answered Saitoh, his voice snide. "_Certainly you didn't expect me to show up here and leave with nothing?_"

Nicole gulped audibly - now she knew why he had insisted on bringing her back here... She swallowed hard and tried hard not to let Saitoh see her shaking. Why was she bothering? She knew Saitoh could read people like books - it was useless to try and hide anything from him. He knew how frightened she was - that was probably why he wasn't trying to get her into an argument again. Why was it so quiet around here? It was like somebody had died or something. The strangest things occurred to people who were convinced they were about to die - Nicole was sure Himejima-sama would kill her. She sniffled, tried not to cry, and tried to think of heaven. But would she still go to heaven after she had been in a place like this? Well, she had tried her hardest not to let herself be touched... Her conscience was poking her, telling her she should have tried just a little harder to resist Aoshi, that she could have held out until he stopped.

"_Irrashaimase, sir,_" said a musical voice, making Nicole jump about two feet in the air. "_Watashi wa Himejima Kiyoko. And you are?_"

Nicole kept her head down but tried to get a look at the madam through her eyelashes - Himejima-sama was wearing a different kimono and were those bandages on her arms?

"_Saitoh,_" said the amber-eyed man, not wanting to bother exchanging formalities with the madam.

"_And what type of girl do you favor, Saitoh-san?_" Himejima-sama asked in a solicitous voice. "_Old hats or new arrivals? Do you prefer an experienced girl?_"

"_Spirited,_" said Saitoh, grinning again - Nicole could practically hear the expression in his voice. "_I like a girl who fights._"

"_Well you've got the worst of them right there,_" the madam said sourly, gesturing at Nicole.

"_How much?_" demanded Saitoh.

Nicole curled up and wished she could melt into the floor - she felt it when the madam's face lit up in a savage smile.

"_For her? Tonight? No charge,_" said Himejima-sama. "_Do what you like with her. It saves me the trouble of punishing her._"

"Himejima-sama, no!" cried Nicole, jumping to her feet. "There is no way in heaven or hell that I am having any kind of intimate contact with this sarcastic, mean-spirited, spiteful, annoying, ARROGANT JERK - Saitoh Hajime!"

"_No charge?_" Saitoh asked conversationally, acting as if the girl's outburst had been on the opposite side of a pane of soundproof glass.

"_Hai,_" the madam assured him. "_Pick any room that isn't occupied._"

"_With..._" Saitoh paused, licking his lips and leering at Nicole. "_... pleasure..._"

Nicole felt like being violently ill as Saitoh picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder again, ambling down the hall in search of a room. Ironically, he stopped at the large private room where Nicole had spent her night with Souzou - oh, how she wished she was with him again! After the way he kissed her, she wasn't sure if she would mind as much if, next time, he decided not to stop... But that was foolishness - she was letting the loose morals in this place get to her and there wasn't going to be a "next time" with Souzou.

Reality intruded upon her as she was slung off Saitoh's shoulder and dropped unceremoniously on the futon in the middle of the room. Before he could do anything else, she was up on her feet, ready to either fight him or bluff until he actually knocked her unconscious. She heard a deep, threatening growl rumble up in his throat, but she held her ground, clenching her teeth as she prepared to do whatever she had to do to keep him off her as long as possible. Saitoh grinned at her, his amber eyes gleaming in the low light of the lamp. He really was just like a wolf. No... wolves were kinder - they didn't leer at their prey as they were killing it. She knew what he was trying to do, trying to get her in a no-win situation.

Unfortunately, he was succeeding. She couldn't back up without backing herself into a corner. If she took her eyes off him for a second, he would have her. Taking one step sideways either way was a bad idea - Saitoh wasn't the kind to bother with circling around an opponent. But if she just stood where she was and stared at him, he would just step forward and just like that he would have her. No matter what she did, she was trapped in that room with the Wolf of Mibu. Then she noticed that he still had his sword on him - her eyes widened and she almost fainted. While she was wavering, Saitoh took two long strides forward and took hold of her, turning her around so that her back was pressed against his chest.

"_It won't be any fun if you're giving up already,_" he whispered in her ear, nuzzling against her hair possessively.

"Get the hell off me..." snarled Nicole, elbowing him hard in the side. "Sick bastard."

"_But then... What would it be like if you just went ahead and succumbed to me?_" growled Saitoh, ignoring her struggle and stroking her under her chin.

Nicole tried to pull her head back - Saitoh growled again in satisfaction.

"_See, you're leaning into me already,_" he said softly, sliding one hand over her chest as she tried to kick him in the shins.

"I have not yet begun to fight," snarled Nicole, biting Saitoh's hand as he ran one finger over her lips - thankfully, it was enough to make him let go.

"_A little animal, ne?_" Saitoh said, arching one eyebrow suggestively at her.

"I've had about enough of your bad innuendoes!" yelled Nicole, making a grab for the _wakizashi_, the short sword, that hung at his waist - to her surprise, he let her take it.

"_So now you think you can play with a sword?_" the Wolf of Mibu asked sardonically.

"I wouldn't use it against you - I don't want your blood on me," Nicole spat in disgust, turning the blade and pressing it softly against her own throat. "But I know you can't stand seeing a woman's blood."

Saitoh's eyes narrowed and he stepped over to the door, removed the _katana_ from his waist, and set the sheathed sword outside the door.

"_Let's play fair,_" he said in a silky voice. "_No blades. I put down mine, now you put down yours._"

Nicole lowered the short sword, then she screamed like a madwoman and threw it at Saitoh - his eyes widened slightly and he was actually forced to dive out of the way. As he got up, he yanked the Shinsengumi bandanna off his head and threw it down. His eyes were wild, like a rabid animal's. Oh shit... thought Nicole - she had made him snap and now she was sure he was going to kill her. He wouldn't even bother staining his sword with her blood - it would be so easy for him to strangle her, or, if he was feeling merciful, snap her neck. Her eyes widened and she backed up - it didn't do her any good, because two seconds later, she was pinned by her throat against the wall by a very angry Saitoh Hajime.

"_I wish you hadn't done that,_" he whispered, tightening his grip on her throat.

Nicole clawed at his hand, but he just raised his arm until he had lifted her off the floor - tears slipped out of Nicole's eyes as she fought for her breath.

"Go ahead and kill me already!" she grated out, scratching wildly at his wrist.

"_Oh no... That wouldn't do,_" replied Saitoh. "_That would take all the fun out of it for me._"

He tightened his grip again, drawing a pained squeak from Nicole, and quickly untied her _obi_, letting it drop on the floor.

"_It's just like how you water-starve a horse to break it,_" he explained, his voice still carrying that horrendous silky tone.

Nicole was gasping for air, trying to stay conscious just for a few more seconds, but her vision was starting to swim.

"_But there are some who say you should make the horse come to you willingly by offering it treats,_" continued Saitoh, loosening his grip just enough for Nicole to get a tiny breath. "_Wouldn't it be so much better if you came to me willingly?_"

He released his grip on Nicole's throat and caught her easily before she hit the floor, lifting her up carefully in his arms and holding her close. Nicole was trying to get used to breathing again and lay mostly limp in his grip. She was trying to pull up the energy to fight him off - it would be so easy to use a palm-heel attack and break his nose... If only she could see straight, past those swimming, swirling colors... Her breath caught in her throat and she started to cough, unconsciously gripping his _gi_ as she tried to keep herself steady - the last thing she needed right now was to be dropped again. Saitoh made a pleased purring noise deep in his throat.

"_Here's your chance to be with a man who knows how to please a woman,_" he crooned in her ear, licking the outer shell playfully, then biting down a little. "_Men don't realize how much better it is when the woman is made ready. The friction's no good if you're bone dry..._"

Nicole could only hear a few words as her heart pounded up in her head - "ready", "friction", and "dry" caught in her mind and she felt sick again, letting a soft moan escape her lips.

"_There there,_" purred Saitoh, kneeling beside the futon and laying Nicole on it. "_It's going to happen between us tonight, one way or the other. It works better for me if you're wet, so let's just get on with it._"

Growling softly, Nicole crossed one leg over the other, pressing them together as hard as she could - Saitoh just laughed and removed her kimono.

"No... Stop..." whimpered Nicole, still trying to slap him. "Don't touch me... It hurts! Stop! Get off me! Ow... It hurts so bad..."


	12. Winter Fighter

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 11

"Winter Fighter"

Miku had managed to survive the hike back to the Sekihoutai's camp. It took nearly all day and they had to stop twice because of snow flurries. Touya still had a hangover and was complaining about the headache it gave him. Kyo was still pissed off at Touya for trying to steal his breakfast and was complaining about Touya's complaints. Reichi had entertained them all with a dramatic retelling of his experience at Himejima-sama's place, making Miku want to be ill. During that discussion, Souzou remained strangely quiet. Then Reichi had, unintentionally, gone too far...

"_--- and I ended up paying for Souzou's night with this gaijin girl,_" he was just saying, getting more into his story now that he figured he had a chance to embarrass his friend. "_But it turned out she was as cold as on old dead catfish._"

"_A gaijin girl?_" Miku asked weakly, looking rather green around the gills.

"_Yeah, why?_" asked Reichi, since this was Miku's first addition to the conversation all day.

"_Nevermind,_" the younger man said stiffly, his tone telling all of them he had no wish to talk about it.

Touya, who had forgotten about his headache while listening to Reichi's story, opened his mouth to try and prod an answer out of him, but Souzou held up a hand and stopped him.

"_The gaijin girl wasn't that bad,_" the captain said quietly, looking off into the woods around them.

And, flying by the seat of his pants, Souzou quickly started telling them another X-rated story, making it up as he went along - had Nicole been there to hear it, she would have beaten his head in with the nearest available stick.

"_She was actually quite talented,_" he said casually. "_Very... um... flexible! It was amazing - she could get herself in the wildest positions. I'm surprised she didn't snap her back. She could _XXXXXXXX _while she was bent over backwards and her _XXXX _was _XXXX!"

You get the idea.

----

----

Nicole, still deep in a troubled sleep, sneezed twice and turned over, mumbling protests at her assailant in her dreams and turning over - her elbow made hard contact with Saitoh's head, the lucky shot making him sleep just a little deeper.

----

----

"_She really had some spirit,_" Souzou finished, the only truth he had told in his story. "_Not cold at all. In fact, it was like she had gunpowder in her._"

Reichi had sat there grumbling through the whole story, since he hadn't been able to finish his own and since he couldn't follow an act like Souzou's. Touya had forgotten about his hangover-induced headache entirely, and his low tolerance for loud noise, and was jovially yelling for Souzou to tell more. Kyo, for the first time today, was in agreement with his best friend and he was sitting beside Souzou, poking him in the ribs to try and get more of a story out of him. Miku rose to his feet silently, his face a pale shade of green, and started walking off into the woods. A few seconds later they heard him fall on his knees and empty his stomach onto the ground.

"_Was it something I said?_" asked Souzou, concerned about the younger man.

"_I think he's a virgin,_" commented Touya.

"_Definitely,_" agreed Reichi, waiting until Miku was within earshot to continue. "_Think we should take him out for a night?_"

"_NO!_" Miku shouted, a little louder than was necessary, looking terribly flustered. "_I mean... Just... no..._"

Reichi opened his mouth to try to persuade Miku to change his mind, but Souzou saw the look in the young man's topaz eyes.

"_Lay off, Reichi,_" he said wearily.

"_But---_"

"_I said 'lay off',_" repeated Souzou, his voice taking an authoritative tone.

Reichi backed off, but the look on his face said that Miku would be the target of most of the humor in the camp until the novelty of it wore off - it was all in good fun.

Souzou, in that same commanding voice, told everyone to get a move on since it had stopped snowing. He wanted to get back to camp in a bit of a hurry, in hopes that Miku's feet wouldn't be too damaged. The younger man had no shoes and he was starting to walk gingerly, but he made no complaint. Souzou could smell wood smoke, so he knew they were getting close to the camp. They were about a hundred yards away when they spotted someone in the distance - a very small someone with spiky brown hair. The boy took off at a run towards the group. Miku was sort of confused, but the other four were completely unmoved - however, Souzou, Touya, and Kyo carefully stepped aside.

"_Dad!_" shouted the small boy, crashing right into Reichi. "_Are you okay? Did everybody come back?_"

"_Easy there, Sano,_" Reichi said, trying to calm the boy down. "_It's all right. Everything's fine._"

Miku watched Reichi heft the boy up in his arms and set him on his shoulders. When he (Miku) got a good look at the boy, he blinked strangely for a moment - the boy was a mirror reflection of his father! Touya, Kyo, and Souzou all greeted the child with patience and affection in their voices. Miku hung back - he didn't really know how to interact with little boys since his only younger siblings were his sisters. He swallowed hard and a single tear rolled down his cheek - he hadn't even said goodbye to them. Okon hadn't even woken up when he left and he hadn't said much of anything to Omasu when she woke up so briefly, asking him if something was wrong. He hadn't wanted to worry her - she was just a child - but all the same, he wished he could have at least said goodbye.

"_Hey, Hasegawa-kun!_" said a concerned voice, its owner taking him by the shoulder and shaking him slightly. "_What's wrong?_"

"_I'm alright,_" Miku said quickly, wiping his face rather angrily with his hand and turning away from Kyo.

"_Okay, if you're sure,_" the golden-eyed man said, shrugging his shoulders and brushing the snow out of his hair.

Miku nodded and continued up the path to the camp. He had dropped a little behind everyone else, but he didn't care all that much - he didn't feel much like one of them anyway. It was taking him a bit longer anyway, because he couldn't walk very well and he had a nasty gash on the ball of his right foot from a rock he had tripped over. Seeing his own blood staining the snow nearly made him ill again. It made him think, _How long is it going to be before I see much more than this?_ He forced himself to swallow the bile rising in his throat and continue up the path. Biting his lip, he thought about how much he would like to turn around and go back to his sisters.

"_You all can go on ahead,_" said the young boy's voice.

Sanosuke dropped back and waited for Miku - there was just some kind of instinct in some children that told them when other people needed help.

"_Sanosuke desu!_" he proclaimed to Miku, pointing at himself. "_On'mae wa?_"

Startled, Miku tilted his head at the boy.

"_On'mae wa?_" Sanosuke persisted, tugging on Miku's worn sleeve.

"_Hasegawa Miku desu,_" Miku replied, unable to keep his voice from sounding bitter.

"_You sound like you're upset about something,_" the boy remarked, turning his wide-eyed face up to look Miku in the eyes.

Miku was about to respond when Sanosuke, not paying attention to where he was going, walked into a tree.

"_Aw shit!_" the spiky-haired boy grumbled, rubbing the side of his head.

Miku's eyes nearly bugged out of his head - he had never heard a child swear before!

"_Here, let me help,_" he offered, taking hold of the boy's collar and pulling him to his feet.

"_I coulda got up by myself, y'know,_" Sanosuke told him sullenly. "_I hate gettin' treated like a kid all the time. I'm part of the Sekihoutai too!_"

Miku could relate to this - he had been treated like a child until his father and brothers had gone off to fight in the war.

"_I know what you mean,_" he said conversationally. "_I had two older brothers, so I got treated like a kid 'til I was about seventeen._"

"_Well how old are you?_" asked Sanosuke.

"_I'm nineteen,_" replied Miku, brushing the snow out of his hair and marveling at how easy it was to talk to this boy - he was more mature than he looked. "_And you?_"

"_I'll be nine in... let me see..._" the boy counted on his fingers. "_... about seven months!_"

"_Wow, you don't look it,_" Miku said truthfully - the kid could have passed for seven or eight, but he wasn't going to tell him that.

Sanosuke beamed with pride and attached himself like a leech to Miku's right arm.

----

----

Nicole woke up very, very early to find Saitoh Hajime still asleep beside her. She nearly gagged, but forced herself to calm down and think things through. Was he deeply asleep enough that she could get out from under the blanket, dress, and get out to the bath house without him noticing? Moving carefully, she started inching towards the edge of the futon, shifting just a little bit at a time. Cautiously, she eased her right arm out from under the blanket and pushed it (the blanket) away from her, trying not to let the cold air get to Saitoh's skin. It wasn't that she particularly cared - he could freeze solid for all she cared - but she knew he had very heightened senses and a change in temperature might wake him.

_Almost there,_ thought Nicole, slowly sitting up. Carefully, she slid her legs out from under the blanket. _Got it._

Her back hurt, her neck hurt - she figured she would have the bruises for weeks, and every muscle in her body screamed with pain as she sort of crab-walked off the futon. Trying to keep her back, neck, and knees from popping, she cautiously, carefully pushed herself to her feet and looked around. Once again, she realized, she had slept in her glasses - at least he hadn't broken them, she thought. She located her kimono quickly - she was glad Saitoh had thrown it out of the way last night, because if he had been lying on it, there would be no way for her to get out. Quickly, trying to keep the fabric from rustling, she picked up the garment and carefully pulled it on. It felt revolting to put worn clothing back on after what had happened last night - she just wanted a bath.

Then she saw it - the _wakizashi_ that she had thrown at him. It was laying on the floor, below a hole in the wall, where she guessed it had hit. She gave the sleeping man a hard look, located her obi, and while she was tying it, she stalked over to the abandoned blade. Saitoh was sleeping on his side, that stupid ponytail fanning out behind him - the old grin of Chaos spread across Nicole's face. Laughing inwardly, she picked up the short sword and flicked it out to the side as she had seen most of the characters of Kenshin do. She stepped back over to the futon, circled around it once, and stopped to kneel behind the man she had grown to hate. Grinning maniacally, she took hold of his ponytail and...

_And cut,_ she thought, trying to keep from giggling.

She stuck the short sword point-down in the floor and stood back to admire her work - then common sense hit her in the head and she lit out of there like a bat out of hell.

_I always thought he looked stupid with the ponytail,_ she thought as she walked her human bullet walk down through the halls, trying to get to the bath house before anybody woke up. _I should have done that to Aoshi too. What next? Kenshin? Nah, I can't cut his hair. All the fangirls, including Ashley, would murder me._

And she began giggling insanely as she stepped right through the back door and into the courtyard, feeling a savage pleasure as she pushed through the paper and snapped the bamboo like twigs. It was never a good thing when Nicole woke up early - it was pretty much guaranteed to have her manic for the rest of the day. Well, she was manic until she crashed, then she would just go curl up someplace and go to sleep. Or she would go bother Ashley. It still stung her heart to think of her best friend, but she was becoming able to hold her feelings back, if just for a little while. She looked back at the ruined door and giggled again, taking off at a run for the bath house.

Once more, she threw her kimono down in the changing alcove and headed in to get a bucket and a washcloth. It was weird, she thought. While she had been decently clean back home, she had never been quite so fanatical about hygiene before - even if she did favor spending an hour or two in the shower. Her nose wrinkled in disgust as she started washing herself again, scrubbing as hard as she could. The smells from last night still clung to her body and she was determined to scrub them away, loading her washcloth with lavender-scented soap and lathering up the boar-bristle brush. The bristles were still harsh against her skin, but she didn't care if she took a couple of dermal layers off. If it would rid her of the feelings he had left, then she could shed her whole skin like a snake for all she cared.

_Maybe I should have killed him when I had the chance,_ she thought savagely as she washed a certain part of herself that had taken a lot of abuse as of late. _Nah... Couldn't do that. He's kind of key to stopping Shishio later... Anyway, if anybody should be able to kill him, it oughta be Kenshin._

Nicole amused herself by pitting Saitoh against Kenshin in her mind as she started on her hair - was it possible to get high off the scent of lavender? Laughing out loud at her own joke, she liberally applied lavender oil to the entire length of her hair and started combing it through. Self-pampering was soothing - it was a good way to make herself feel beautiful in an ugly, disgusting place like this. She poured a generous amount of shampoo into her hand and slapped it on top of her head, vigorously massaging her scalp and working her fingernails in as well. After rinsing, she slicked up with conditioner and started combing that through. A knot in the back had her swearing in seconds and finally, frustrated, she just yanked the knotted hair right out of her head. She lost more hair that way... Carefully, she rinsed the conditioner out and squeezed the water out of her hair. This time, she didn't bother tying it in a knot on top of her head as she grabbed a towel to wrap up in.

She felt like giving a Cheshire cat grin as she sank down in the hot water as far as she could get, sitting cross-legged on the bottom of the tub. It reminded her of the hot tub at the Grand Floridian, where she had spent a wonderful Disney vacation with her best friend, only the water wasn't all bubbly. And at Disneyworld, she'd had a bathing suit on instead of an itty-bitty little towel. When she felt herself starting to float up again, she pushed herself up so that her head was barely above the water's surface. She liked it better under the water - it was warm down there. But she had abused her lungs enough already today and decided against submerging herself again. Giggling again, she wondered how Saitoh would react to his new haircut.

She didn't have to wait long to find out because, as if it sounded on cue, she heard the angry roar all the way from inside the bath house. Oh shit... What in the freaking hell was she going to do? Nicole was seriously scared now - she knew she was in for it for sure. She could still hear him cursing at the top of his voice and sank down in the water so that her head was hidden by the top of the bath tub. Outside, she could hear people running around, yelling frantically. She could pick out Toriko's voice in the chaos and inwardly said _Yeah, you go Toriko-chan!_ The Tomo look-alike was trying to buy Nicole some time. Then Nicole's blood chilled when she heard Toriko scream. She could hear Himejima-sama too - this was the first time she had ever heard the madam sound really emotional. It was obvious she was frightened.

"_Onegai, Saitoh-san, calm down!_" she cried, only to be rebuffed by the angry Shinsengumi captain. "_I'll see that she's punished, just please don't do any more damage!_"

"_Out of my way, onna!_" ordered Saitoh, his voice an angry roar as he pushed the madam away. "_I'll take care of the bloody wench myself!_"

"_Oh no..._" whispered Toriko as Yumi helped her up. She looked up at the older girl. "_We have to do something!_"

Yumi was about to ask "What can we do?" when a figure with a mop of brown hair emerged from the hall, coughing as it came into view - Okita Soushi had been awakened by the noise and was coming to see what was wrong.

Saitoh kicked in the door to the bath house and stepped over the splintered bamboo. He could smell fresh hair products - the little bitch was in there somewhere. Quietly, he padded over, then threw the door to the changing alcove open - all he found there was her kimono, wrinkled in a heap on the floor. He snarled a black curse and stalked into the washroom, looking around at the hair products that had been left sitting out. There was no sign of the girl in that room - nowhere she could have hidden anyway. That left the closed-off section that housed the large bath tub. Without making a sound, he nudged the door open with the end of the sheath of his sword. Nicole held her breath, not sure whether or not to submerge herself again - it might make enough of a little noise that it would lead him right to her. She couldn't hear anything in the room and wondered if it was safe to poke her head up - and decided not to. Then she felt a painful rap on the top of her head.

"_I found you,_" growled Saitoh, his hand on the handle of his sword. "_Do you have any idea what you've done? Of course you do, you damned whore._"

He pointed at his hair, which hung rather raggedly around his face.

"_Now when you fought, that was fine,_" he said savagely, advancing on her. "_I like it when the woman has spirit. But when you draw a blade against Saitoh Hajime, you have begun a fight to the death._"

Nicole was sunk in the water up to her chin, her eyes wide and her mouth open. Chaos was gone and right then, she was just an eighteen-year-old girl who was genuinely afraid for her life, and with good reason. The look in Saitoh's amber eyes told her that she was looking death in the face. His hand was gripping the handle of his sword, shaking with anger - a focused Saitoh was one thing, but an enraged Saitoh was a different ball game altogether. Nicole was shaking in fear, her heart pounding like a drum and racing a mile a minute. If she had been in one of her fan fictions back home, he would have seen the fear in her eyes and stayed his hand, but this was cold, deadly reality. No one, besides Kenshin, lived once Saitoh Hajime decided they had to die. She just tried not to cry - she wasn't going to die like a coward.

"_I don't know whether to stain the bath water red or just pull you out of there and pin you to the floor,_" Saitoh said in a dangerously calm voice, barely disguising his rage. "_However, I am sure of this: you will not be dying quickly..._"

He drew his sword in one fluid motion and leveled the point at Nicole's throat - she was trembling, but she wouldn't allow herself to cry out. Saitoh slid the blade up Nicole's throat, just letting her feel the threat of cold metal, then back down, cutting a thin gash in the front of her throat. Nicole clenched her teeth - it was no worse than a cat scratch, she told herself, not even that deep. The amber-eyed man grinned, baring his teeth like an animal. He waved the blade a little in front of her, letting her watch her own blood dripping into the water. Then, in a move so fast she almost couldn't see it, he drove the blade into her right shoulder, just under the end of her collar bone.

Nicole couldn't help it - she screamed in pain and terror. He really was going to kill her, she thought in frantic desperation, trying not to faint as she watched the water around her turn red. She kept screaming, though her throat was getting raw and the situation looked utterly hopeless. Her only thought was _Maybe if I scream loud enough and long enough, somebody'll stop him._ But she knew that couldn't happen - once Saitoh decided to kill someone, he would do it - that was just the way his mind worked. Her screams seemed amplified in the small space of the bath house and it was getting on Saitoh's nerves - he backhanded her across her face, splitting her lip open again. She tasted her own blood and nearly gagged, feeling the red liquid dripping from her chin.

"Saitoh, please!" she cried, though she had promised herself she wouldn't beg. "Stop! You can't do this! You won't kill women and children! I qualify as both, remember?"

"_Not anymore,_" growled Saitoh, pressing the tip of his sword into her and drawing it across her chest horizontally, right above her breasts. "_As I said, gender doesn't matter once an opponent takes up a blade._"

"But I don't have one now..." croaked Nicole, pressing herself as far back against the side of the tub as she could. Then an idea occurred to her. "You can't kill me! You'd have to pay!"

"_No charge, remember?_" Saitoh reminded her, grinning sadistically. "_You're worthless to the madam now. A spirited girl is one thing, but one like you is best disposed of. You put down a bitch when it goes rabid._"

"Saitoh! NO!" screamed Nicole, trying to do anything she could to buy herself some time.

The amber-eyed man reared his arm back to deal the death blow.

"_Die, little bitch,_" he said quietly, pulling his arm back just for a second and---

"_Hajime! Stop this!_" cried a harsh voice as a hand took hold of Saitoh's wrist.

Okita, breathing hard from the effort it had taken to sprint for the bath house and the effort it took to restrain an angry Wolf of Mibu, had his other hand on the handle of Saitoh's sword, trying to wrench it from his grip.

"_Soushi... Let go of me,_" said Saitoh, his voice calm and civil.

"_No. Hajime, this is wrong,_" contradicted the younger man.

He kept his hold on Saitoh's wrist and maneuvered around so that he was standing between the girl and the blade - it was as much a show of trust as anything else. As a swordsman, Okita knew that if Saitoh wanted to, he could kill both of them with one blow, but as a friend, he knew the amber-eyed man couldn't raise a blade to him. Nicole was breathing hard, clutching at the wound in her shoulder with one hand and rubbing her lip with the other. Tears of fear, pain, and desperation streamed down her cheeks. Okita let go of Saitoh's wrist, but remained firmly planted between his friend and his friend's intended prey, staring down his best friend.

"_Soushi, move aside,_" ordered Saitoh.

"_Hajime, there is no need for this,_" the younger man said quietly, his voice just as authoritative. "_She may have taken up a blade before, but now she is just an unarmed woman. Having a woman's blood on your hands makes you look bad as a warrior, whether she wounded your pride or not._"

Saitoh growled angrily and prodded his friend's shoulder with the end of his sword.

"_I'd like to see you try it,_" Okita gritted out, his brown eyes glittering angrily. "_It was enough that you had her with no charge. Have her again if you like and have that be her punishment. A girl like her isn't worth killing - in a place like this, she doesn't have long anyway._"

The brown-haired man stared up at his best friend and grasped the end of the sword in his bare hand carefully - with his chest heaving in anger, Saitoh gave in and lowered his blade.

"Thank you... Thank you..." panted Nicole, trying to rinse her wounds out with the already-red water.

"_Don't bother thanking me,_" snapped Okita. "_I just don't want to see my friend shed a woman's blood. You'd best get out of here before he changes his mind._"

Nicole pulled her towel close around her, trying to ignore the way the cloth rubbed against her wounds, and scrambled to get out of the bath. She didn't even stop to grab her kimono as she ran past the changing alcove and picked her way over the splintered door. Her wounds just wouldn't stop bleeding and she was starting to feel faint again, but she wouldn't let herself fall - she couldn't pass out now. She could see the girls - Toriko, Yumi, and Saru - standing just inside the door, looking out at her with frightened faces through the hole in the _shoji_. Wait... Where was Saki? Inu-Yasha, she could care less about, but Saki was her friend. She couldn't think on that anymore - she just had to concentrate on staying on her feet as she wobbled her way over to the ruined door. Her vision swam, but she was almost there - just two more steps, but no. Her knees gave way and she sank to the ground. Himejima-sama didn't even look at her as she swept away down the hall.

"_Oh my God!_" exclaimed Toriko, who sported a bruise on the side of her face. "_What did he do to her?_"

Yumi's eyes widened and she pushed past the other girls, running to Nicole's side as best she could while Saru clamped her hand over her own mouth in attempt to keep from being violently ill.

"_Niki-chan... Nikooru!_" cried Yumi, shaking the American girl's uninjured shoulder. "_Hang in there! You're going to be all right, I promise. Saru-chan, help me get her inside!_"

The other girl's great green eyes watered as she forced herself to swallow what had been rising in her throat and she hurried to help Yumi.

"_What am I supposed to do?_" she asked, her voice a little desperate.

Neither of them could carry Nicole alone and trying to carry her together was likely to cause her further injury.

"_Just tell me where to put her,_" a male voice said curtly.

Okita Soushi, who had taken his friend's sword away from him, slid one arm under Nicole's knees - she whimpered as he eased the other arm under her shoulders.

"_This way,_" Yumi answered in a choked voice, gesturing politely and leading the way to the room she shared with Nicole and Saki.

The brown-haired man nodded as his amber-eyed friend shoved past the whole group and stalked towards the front of the establishment.

"_Thank you, sir,_" Saru said softly.

"_For what?_" snapped Okita.

"_For stopping him,_" she answered.

Okita nodded, not saying another word, as he followed Yumi to the required hall - he could guess which room he was looking for by the wreckage of the door.

"_This is it,_" Yumi said unnecessarily, gesturing at the room with the broken-down door.

"_So I gathered,_" Okita said dryly, stepping over the ruined door and into the room.

He located a futon and half laid/half dropped Nicole on it - she made a soft, pained noise as she landed, but made no further complaint. Yumi picked her way over the pieces of the door and padded across the room to hover protectively around Nicole's futon. Saru leaped over the bamboo-and-paper wreckage and went to kneel by Nicole's side. Toriko kicked the pieces of the door out of the way and hurried in as well, knocking Okita out of the way with her elbow. The brown-haired man grunted with the impact to his chest and tried hard not to cough. Figuring the girls could handle this and not wanting to get any further involved, he left without a word.

----

----

Miku swung his arms and twisted his upper body carefully - the uniform of the Sekihoutai felt unusual to him, so Western in its design. He wasn't used to his pants almost clinging to his legs and his shirt being so tight around his torso and arms - he squirmed uncomfortably and unbuttoned the shirt to the middle of his chest. That was a little bit better, but he shifted his shoulders again. The shirt looked like it was a few sizes too big for him, but even as loose as it was, it felt restrictive to him, like he would tear it if he moved too much, so he was testing his range of motion. He didn't like any of it, especially his boots - they were trying to rub blisters and the hard soles were murder on the bottoms of his feet. Even the Western socks weren't helping much.

"_I hate this thing,_" he complained, scratching the back of his neck, where the collar of his shirt rubbed at his skin.

Souzou rolled his eyes.

"_Get used to it,_" he told the younger man. "_Oh, and I don't care how you wear it just around camp, but when we're moving as a group, you have to have it put together and looking sharp._"

The topaz-eyed youth grumbled a black curse and shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably again.

"_Another thing - we're all friends and comrades here, but I'm still your captain and you will speak to me with respect,_" Souzou told him. "_I can take a joke and we all sort of pick on each other, but I won't have anyone swearing at me._"

"_Sorry... Captain..._" said Miku, unused to referring to someone by title, but still apologetic.

"_It's alright - you're new, so you get time to learn about things,_" Souzou said graciously - it was obvioust he'd had a good upbringing, with the way he knew proper manners and good speech.

Miku bowed and mumbled a "thank you", awkwardly taking his leave and taking his new portable bedroll to the tent he would be sharing with another young member of the Sekihoutai - Katano Hideki. When he got to the tent, he found Hideki sitting inside quietly on his own futon, poring over a Western book with great interest. The boy had a rather innocent, academic air about him. His eyes were the color of fresh roses, red with a purplish undertone, and his hair was chocolate-brown, hanging just past his shoulders in a low ponytail. His build was rather feminine, Miku noticed - and he didn't look like he was more than fifteen years old! What was a kid like this doing in an army? And for that matter, what was Sanosuke doing there! Wasn't it dangerous for there to be children here?

_I always heard about child soldiers,_ thought Miku. _I guess it was all true._

"_Erm... Hi there,_" he said to the younger boy, his voice seeming unnecessarily loud in the quiet, library-like atmosphere that had developed inside the tent. "_Hasegawa Miku desu._"

"_Nani? Oh! I heard there was someone new,_" the wide-eyed boy responded, looking up at Miku over the top of his book - his voice sounded rather vague, as though he had dragged himself out of another world to have this conversation. "_Katano Hideki des'. Hajimemashite, Hasegawa-sempai._"

"_Eh, call me Miku... "Sempai" if you must,_" Miku said rather uncomfortably - he wasn't used to formalities and the use of them in his new surroundings made him slightly uncomfortable.

"_Okay, Miku-sempai,_" Hideki said agreeably, marking his page and putting his book aside. "_Would you like some help setting up?_"

Miku shook his head and started spreading his bedroll out on the ground beside Hideki's - the kid seemed nice enough, he thought.

"_So, what made you decide to join us, sempai?_" the younger boy asked innocently.

Miku frowned and bit his lip - he wasn't sure if he was ready to talk about it.

"_Family problems,_" he said stiffly.

"_I understand about that,_" said Hideki. "_I followed my three brothers to make sure they would be alright._"

The boy hung his head.

"_Motoki died last week - he was just two years older than me,_" he said sadly, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "_And his best friend Junichi, too._"

Miku didn't need to ask what had happened - quite a few of the men around camp were sporting bandages and various cuts and bruises.

"_I'm sorry to hear that,_" he said to the younger boy, laying a hand on his shoulder. Talking about someone else's problems took his mind off of his own. "_I lost both my brothers and my father too._"


	13. Savage Light

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 12

"Savage Light"

A young man with a suntanned complexion and ruddy brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail, approached the establishment that night. His eyes were a disturbing shade of red-brown and glittered with unholy malice. A single sword hung at his waist, the lack of a short sword telling everyone that he thought himself undefeatable. He carried himself as a true lone warrior, caring for none but himself. His _gi_ was almost threadbare, but he looked credible anyway, and the ties of his _hakama_ had been cut short, presumably for use as tourniquets. Looking at him, one never would guess that he had a wife and a child waiting for him back home, but Nakamura Makoto was indeed Miharu's husband and Michiko's father. He saw the banner above the establishment's door and licked his lips. It had been awhile since he'd had some fun.

----

----

Nicole lay quiet and motionless on her futon - her wounds had been carefully bandaged and she had been dressed in a white sleeping yukata.

"_Look at how pale she is..._" whispered Saru. "_She really does look like a ghost now._"

"_She really does,_" agreed Toriko, rubbing at the bruise on her face.

"_Hush, both of you!_" snapped Yumi, returning to the room with Nicole's things - her kimono, her cape, and her shoes - and turning to close the door. "_Damn it all to hell and back..._"

She had picked that phrase up from Nicole and used it as she remembered sourly that the door was in pieces, stacked at the end of the hall. Looking around, she located an extra blanket, picked it up, and headed over to the door frame with an idea in her head. She pushed out the paper in the panels above the door and stuck the top edge of the blanket through the hole, pulling it down so that it formed a makeshift curtain/door. Sighing heavily, she padded back over to Nicole's futon - the American girl had been out cold since she had passed out that morning. As she (Yumi) stared off into space, more worries filtered into her head - namely, what had become of Saki? No one had seen the seventeen-year-old in quite a while - could she have made a run for it too? No... She wouldn't have dared, not with what had happened last night...

"_Yumi-san!_" cried a frantic voice, its owner pushing the blanket-curtain aside in a hurry and rushing in. "_It's Saki-chan! This is bad!_"

Yumi, Saru, and Toriko all looked up at the newcomer, then around at each other - all afraid to speak.

"_What is it, Nozomi-chan?_" Yumi finally asked, her voice carefully calm.

"_Himejima-sama broke a sake bottle across her face! And that's not the worst of it!_" yelped Nozomi, a sixteen-year-old with a thin scar across her right cheek. "_Help me get her in here!_"

Saru and Toriko leaped up and helped take Saki's still form from the two young farm girls Nicole had scared not too terribly long ago, who were struggling under the older girl's dead weight. Nozomi, who had been quite the pickpocket before being introduced to her current profession, produced a small oil lamp and a box of matches. Yumi accepted the offering gratefully and whispered her thanks to the younger girl. Saru and Toriko laid Saki on the futon beside Nicole's, biting their lips helplessly as they watched her face bleed onto her pillow. None of them, Saru, Toriko, Yumi, or Nozomi, knew what to do to stop the bleeding or bandage the wounds. Finally, one of the farm girls stepped forward.

"_I know a li'l 'bout medicine,_" she said in a bit of a Kansai accent. "_Used ta patch up m' brothers all'a time back home..._"

"_Thank heaven..._" said Yumi. "_What's your name, hon?_"

"_Kasuga Yori,_" she replied, kneeling beside Saki's futon and getting straight to business. "_I think there's some pieces 'a the sake bottle in the cuts. Y'all got anything I could use to get those out?_"

"_I think I have some straight pins somewhere,_" Saru offered.

"_That oughta work,_" agreed Yori, lighting the oil lamp and handing it to Toriko. "_You... D'ya think ya could hold this where it'll keep 'er face lit up?_"

Toriko nodded as Saru jumped up and rushed out of the room, heading for her own - in a few minutes she was back with what looked like a Western woman's hat pin.

"_Will this work?_" she asked, holding up the three-inch-long pin.

Yori nodded and took the pin, bending over Saki's face as Toriko held the lamp as close as was safe.

"_Like I said, her face isn't the worst of it,_" continued Nozomi, pointing at Saki. "_We kind of have to have her on her back now, but we need to make it quick. Himejima-sama had one of the guys take a cord whip to her._"

Saru nodded, looking like she was about to be ill - she remembered well what a cord whip felt like. The memory throbbed in her back as well as in her mind. Toriko swallowed hard and looked rather ill herself, but somehow was able to keep both her hand and the oil lamp steady. Yumi took a deep breath and held Saki's hand as Yori leaned in closer to her face and carefully swept the tip of the pin into one of the open wounds. Saki was lucky she was so deeply out of it - she hated sharp pointy things, which was ironic, since she kept her fingernails almost as long as Nicole's. Finally, Yori sighed irritably and sat back up.

"_There's too much blood!_" she grumped softly. "_It'd be fine if we could rinse the cuts out!_"

"_Saru-chan, could you go get a water bucket and a rag?_" Yumi asked the nineteen-year-old, who nodded. "_Make sure you're quiet about it. With the mood Himejima-sama's in, she might get angry at the lot of us for not just leaving her to bleed._"

Saru got up and silently left the room - in a few minutes, she was back with a wooden bucket and the softest washcloth she had been able to find. Nozomi thanked her and she took to hovering worriedly behind the fifteen-year-old until Yumi caught hold of her sleeve and made her sit down. Toriko switched out her hands, holding the oil lamp in her left hand instead of her right, which had been starting to shake. Saki moaned softly and tried to shift her head, causing Yori to yelp and pull the pin away from her face quickly. Saru swallowed hard and carefully held the seventeen-year-old's head still, allowing the farm girl to lean back in and take another cursory sweep along one of the worst of the cuts. Yori bit her lip in frustration, working painfully slowly to pick the clay bits out of the deep wounds.

"_Couldja hand me a wet washrag?_" she asked, wiping the pin on the blanket to get rid of a few bloody clay bits.

Yumi quickly soaked the washcloth, partially squeezed it out, and handed it to Yori, who took it from her, uttering a soft "_thank ya kindly_". Furrowing her brow, Yori inspected the open wounds and carefully squeezed the rest of the water in the cloth out over them. This rinsed some of the fresh and dried blood away, but did little to displace the sharp shards of clay still embedded in Saki's face. Yumi took the cloth from the younger girl and soaked it again, rinsing the blood out of it, then carefully wiped the wounds, letting the fibers catch and hold some of the clay bits, pulling them out. It wasn't the most gentle method, but it was the most effective. After a few more careful swipes, she soaked the cloth again, then squeezed the clean water out over the wounds. Yori made one more pass with the pin and the girls called it quits.

"_Now how do we bandage this?_" asked Toriko, gesturing at Saki's face.

"_I'm not sure there's really any way to,_" Saru said sadly. "_And no way to stitch them either... What do you think, Yori-chan?_"

"_My li'l brother got a bad cut on 'is face once,_" the girl with the Kansai accent mused. "_The only thing I could do fer 'im was clean it and let it scab up. As long as we keep 'er from pickin' at it an' keep it clean, it oughta be fine._"

The rest of the girls sighed.

"_Let's just hope Himejima-sama lets her rest long enough to keep it from opening all the time,_" Nozomi said sourly. "_Yeah... like that's going to happen..._"

Toriko was about to add to that when she noticed Nicole shifting a bit in her sleep.

"_Hey... I think Niki-chan might be coming around now,_" she said quietly, gently taking hold of Nicole's uninjured shoulder and shifting it carefully. "_Hey girl, you okay?_"

Nicole was panting as though she had just been running for her life - her body jerked and she yelped as her eyes flew open.

"Souzou?" she asked in a frantic voice, sitting bolt upright and staying that way for half a second before pain intruded on her senses and she fell over again, looking around groggily. "Whazgoinon? The last thing I remember is trying to stay standing... then I fell over... Where's Saitoh?"

"_Whoa whoa! Take it easy! He's gone!_" Toriko assured her, trying to hold her down without hurting her wounds or touching something indecent. "_You've gotta calm down or you'll really hurt yourself!_"

"Oh and I wonder what it would be like to be really hurt..." snarled Nicole, irritable for a second, then calming down. "Sorry 'bout that... 'm not a mornin' person..."

"_Daijoubu, don't worry about it,_" the honey-eyed girl said dismissively. "_And it's about eight o'clock at night, by the way._"

"Oh..." Nicole said intelligently, forcing herself to sit up again. "So what'd I miss? Is everybody okay? Nobody got hurt because of me, did they?"

The rest of the girls were quiet.

"And who are you two?" asked Nicole, gesturing at Yori and Nozomi.

"_Yamizaki Nozomi,_" said the ex-pickpocket casually.

"_An' I'm Kasuga Yori,_" said the farm girl, nodding her head at the American girl.

"Nice ta meetcha," replied Nicole, leaning on her left arm and holding her right hand out to shake - the other girls just sort of looked at her strangely. "But anyway, what's goin' on? Y'all weren't all waitin' fer me ta wake up, were ya?"

"_Well, partially,_" admitted Yumi. "_But something else happened too..._"

"What is it?" asked Nicole, her face darkening in concern as she looked around. "Saki!"

She tried to push herself up on her knees so that she could sort of crawl over to the other girl's futon, but Saru wrestled her back down carefully.

"What happened?" the American girl yelped, defiantly remaining sitting up.

The girls looked around at each other uncomfortably - they knew Nicole was sheltered and they weren't sure how to bring up and explain what had happened to Saki.

"_A cord whip happened,_" Toriko replied bluntly, making the other girls cringe at her tactlessness. "_That old cow..._"

"No..." Nicole said in disbelief, then confusion. "What for?"

"_She attacked Himejima-sama,_" said Yumi, surprising the rest of the girls with her bluntness.

"_It was after the old cow figured out you were gone,_" Toriko said with a savage tone in her voice, pointing at the bruise on her own face, then at Yumi's. "_See this? And this? Let's just say we're all blood sisters now. We refused to give you up._"

"_That Inu-Yasha..._" growled Saki, breathing hard from pain and trying to struggle into a sitting position. "_She didn't know any more than the rest of us, but she squealed like a pig... As for me, I'm not sorry for what I did. I wish I could have killed the old hag and been done with it._"

"Saki, don't say things like that," Nicole said quietly, trying to pacify the younger girl.

The seventeen-year-old cracked her neck as she had seen Nicole do so often, her expression unchanging.

"_You're an inspiration to all of us,_" she told the American girl, her voice serious and her eyes wide. "_We all know you can run for it again. Once you make it, all of us can. We're counting on---_"

"_Hush, Saki-chan. Nikooru-chan doesn't need that kind of pressure,_" Yumi cut in, turning to address Nicole. "_Niki-chan, it's true that we all admire you. But we don't want you to push yourself on our account. However, I agree with Saki and I think I speak for everyone in this room - I know you can run again. Just wait for the opportune moment. Remember, just ask us - say the word and we'll help you however we can._"

----

----

**Back In 2006**

"Natalia, Kirsten, I want to go home," Ashley said softly. "I can't stay here anymore."

"Ashley, they're not letting people leave yet," Natalia said patiently.

Ashley had gone back to her bench and was sifting through the contents of Nicole's purse again. Searching one of the inner pockets, she found two of Nicole's many small notebooks. Nicole was well-known as a writer, not only of fan fictions, but of original works. She was also known for her poetry and the songs she wrote. The first notebook looked like a very small compostion book, the kind with the marbled black cover and the stitched spine. The front of it bore Nicole's name, written in ink, and a few random ink splotches where the pen strokes had smeared. The other one was a burgundy spiral-bound notebook about four inches by five and a half. Inside the front and back covers, _hiragana_ charts had been taped - Nicole had memorized that system over the summer and hadn't gotten around to replacing them with _katakana_. Everyone knew that Nicole was never without one of her notebooks - if she liked a song or a poem, she'd show it to anyone who would stand still long enough. Ashley opened the small composition book and started reading the first thing she came to. It was a song titled "Reality".

I run, I hide, try to believe I've escaped

But I haven't yet

I fall so many times – now I'm all cut and scraped

And every time they've caught me

I can do nothing but let my soul get raped

"My God..." whispered Ashley. "When did she write this?"

I try to close my eyes, try to make it not real

But I can't do it

I'm wounded heart and soul – I know I'll never heal

I try to think I'm dreaming

But the agony reminds me that it's all so real

By quality, most would say the song was a third-rate emo rant, but Ashley found it powerful and touching.

So real – my whole life is a nightmare

I see death and torment, but there's nobody to care

So real – I can feel myself shaking

So real – my heart and spirit are breaking

How often did her best friend feel that way? Had she just been in a bad mood when she had written this?

I scream, I thrash, as if I think it'll help me

But it hasn't yet

I'm all fought out – I'm just letting them belt me

Each time they hurt me is much worse than the last

All I know to do is let the heated pain melt me

Ashley was close to tears again, her heart hurting for her friend.

I cry out loud, try to believe it's not real

But I can't do it

I'm scarred for life – I know these wounds will not heal

I wish I were unconscious

But that wouldn't change the fact it's all so real

Kirsten, Natalia, Keith, Brandon, and Daniel were all watching Ashley's face carefully.

So real – I wish to God I were dying

Death would be better than all of this crying

So real – all the things I'm remembering

So real – I just can't keep from trembling

They watched her expression change from shock, to sadness, to anger, then to a mix of all three.

It's all so real!

I want the pain to stop now

It's all so real!

So real I'm ready to drop now

Ashley's hands were clenching on the notebook, almost ripping the pages.

It's all so real

Wake me up when I start dreaming…

Finally, Natalia had the sense to take it away from her - the rest of the group crowded around her to finish reading it.

Catch me now - make me believe it's not real

Do you think you can do it?

Bandage my soul – although I doubt it can heal

I wish I were dead now

All of you can deal with it – it's all so real

Natalia looked rather ill and Kirsten frowned - she was well-known for her poetry too. Keith shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Nicole had written him a poem when there had been a scare about him leaving for another school and it'd had a mournful tone to it, but nothing like this. Daniel, the most neutral about the situation, saw it for what it was - a badly-written song about a teenage girl's problems. He would admit, however, that her use of the word "rape" had been rather strong - he never would have thought she would even consider using a word like that. In truth, none of them did - they all thought Nicole was one of the most innocent people they knew. Of course, Ashley knew different, but she wasn't going to tell any of them that - it would have been disrespectful to her memory. With the notebook staring them in the face, none of them had any idea how true the words on those small pages rang for Nicole at that very moment.

----

----

**Back in February, 1866**

Nicole had managed to swat Saru's hands away and had gone to sit beside Saki's futon. The wounds on the younger girl's face were beginning to stop bleeding, but they were still making Nicole feel sick. She couldn't stand seeing blood, even though she did have a secret "thing" for vampires. Blood could be sexy, yes, but only in certain circumstances - ones involving a certain vampire in a distinctive red coat. But that was stupid - she saw that now. Once more, she began inwardly berating herself about her silly little-girl fantasies about dashing vampires and men who could sweep her away. Then she shook her thoughts away - this was no time to be angry at herself. This was time to start plotting against Himejima-sama - something had to be done and, as the strong one of the group, it was up to Nicole to do it. She couldn't let the other girls know, though - she knew they wouldn't give her away willingly, but under enough pressure, any of them might crack.

_Himejima-sama..._ Nicole thought darkly. _Could I..? Do I have it in me to..?_

She thought back to a line from one of her fan fictions - "Silly little girl - you've never taken a life before and you certainly don't have the nerve to take mine." Ironically, it had been none other than Saitoh Hajime who had said that line, in a fan fiction she and Ashley had been writing together. Now they would never finish it, she thought sadly - not that they would have gotten a chance to anyway, what with going off to college and whatnot. She looked over at Saki and nearly became quite ill - she had gotten a look at the rest of what had happened. The girl was sitting up, holding her kimono modestly over her chest, with her back exposed. Nicole had seen pictures in her history books, but seeing the real thing was almost more than she could handle.

Saki's back was torn open and bleeding profusely where the cord had torn into her skin. She had been shifted off her futon so as not to get it wet, so she was sitting on her knees on the _tatami_ floor. Muscle lay exposed in some places and skin hung in shreds. Yori, who was looking the injuries over, had turned a sickly shade of green and looked like she was about to be violently sick. Silently, she held her hand out for the cloth, which Toriko - the least squeamish of them - handed to her without a word. The cloth was dripping wet, so she (Yori) carefully wrung it out over the wounds in Saki's back, trying to rinse some of the blood away and clear out foreign particles. Saki gritted her teeth, biting back a cry of pain as the water stung her open wounds.

"_Damn that ol' cow,_" whispered Yori. "_I don' know how many 'a these I c'n stitch! There's no way 'a tellin' how deep some of 'em are..._"

Nobody took any notice of it, short of agreeing with her, but that was the first time in her life that Yori had allowed herself to swear out loud. Saki's back was in terrible condition. Many of the thick shreds of skin would have to be cut or burned off, since there was no way they could be stitched back. Nozomi quietly ducked out of the hole Nicole had left in the _shoji_ and went to purloin a knife from somewhere - her gang hadn't called her "the feather-fingered rose" for nothing. Toriko's nose twitched and she scratched it with her free hand, still holding the oil lamp up whenever Yori needed it. Nicole had shifted onto her knees and was watching the proceedings carefully, figuring she should learn something from it. She passed her hand over her bandaged wounds - had they been stitched or just bandaged shut?

"_Saru-san, d'ya think ya coul' go an' get 'nother bucket 'a water?_" Yori asked politely, her voice softer than usual. "_An' bring some soap too?_"

"_I can do that,_" said Saru, getting up and heading for the bath house to get some warm water and a bar of soap, plus a fresh washcloth.

When Nozomi came rushing back to the hole in the _shoji_, panting happily and bearing a grin similar to Nicole's Chaos grin, she produced a beautiful knife from inside her kimono. It was a _tanto_ with a lovely sheath made of shining black ebony wood - she twirled it in her hand proudly, threw it up in the air, and caught it. She played with it for a while, but when Yori coughed politely, she dutifully handed it over, still grinning maniacally. Nicole, who loved knives, perked up and examined the weapon in Yori's thin hand. The American girl's heart raced - she had seen that knife before, she was sure of it! Yes! That was the knife she had admired when she was out with... Miku... Was it possible that...?

_No... He didn't have enough money to have... Wait... He has money now... Maybe he---_

Her train of thought cut off as the light was abruptly taken from her line of vision. Yori had pulled up the wick of the oil lamp so that she had a flame about three inches high. Nicole wondered for a moment, then almost got sick as she realized what the girl was about to do. Yori was holding the knife so that the blade was in the flame, moving it back and forth in order to fire the whole blade. With one hand holding the handle of the knife, she used the other hand to gently stretch out one of the shreds of skin from Saki's back. Nicole looked away, gagging as she smelled burning flesh and Saki yelped. Yori finished the cutting quickly, removing what she had to remove to get enough access to the cuts to stitch them. Shivering, the farm girl laid the skin strips on one of the soiled washcloths. Toriko, the one with the strongest stomach, folded up the washcloth and chucked it out the hole in the wall.

"_You okay, Saki-san?_" asked Yori.

"_Fine..._" Saki gritted out, panting hard through her teeth.

Then another problem presented itself.

"_I hate ta tell ya this, but... I don' have anythin' ta stitch ya up with,_" Yori said, her voice catching. "_I'm... I'm gonna hafta... Oh wha's that word?_"

"Cauterize it?" Nicole supplied automatically - she was used to being a human dictionary/thesaurus/word-finder.

"_Yeah, tha's it!_" exclaimed Yori, pointing at Nicole with her free hand. "_Uh... Saru-san... d'ya think ya could kinda... hold her down fer me? This is gonna hurt..._"

"_Hold me down?_" yelped Saki. "_Now wait just a minute! What are you going to--- OI, SARU, GET OFF!_"

Saki struggled, but the taller, stronger girl carefully flipped her over and held her shoulders down, avoiding the cuts as best she could.

"_Erm... Toriko-chan, d'you think you could sit on her?_" Saru asked awkwardly, pointing at Saki's thrashing legs.

Toriko didn't even answer - she just planted her rear right on the backs of Saki's knees, immobilizing her legs and her lower body. Yori kept the blade of the knife in the flame for a little while longer, holding it and waiting until the metal was almost turning red. Saki was biting her lip, trying to keep from making too much noise. If Himejima-sama found out what was going on, she might have them all whipped. If there was one thing that woman couldn't stand, it was the girls aiding and abetting one who had been punished. Nicole had been a special case - she hadn't wanted to deal with a burial if she wasn't going to charge the man for her. But anyway, Saki stopped struggling as Saru applied more pressure to her shoulders.

"_Saki-san, I'm real sorry 'bout this..._" Yori said apologetically.

She removed the knife from the flame and quickly pressed it down on one of the open wounds in Saki's back. The seventeen-year-old couldn't help herself - she screamed in pain and started trying to kick again. Hardening their hearts for her own good, Saru and Toriko just put more weight on her. Nicole and most of the other girls gagged as they took in the sickening smell of burning skin. Yumi turned about as green as her lipstick and Nozomi ducked out of the hole in the wall again to throw up loudly outside. Nicole, struggling to get her feet under her, wasn't far behind her - not that she had much in her that could be thrown up. Yori put the knife back in the lamp's flame for a moment, then applied it to the next cut - Yumi joined the girls outside, trying to be delicate about placing the contents of her stomach on the ground. Strangely enough, no one paid any mind to the group of girls, barely decently dressed, throwing up outside the high-class bordello. It was as if there was no one out in the streets at all. However, a young man with a single long sword saw them standing up and wiping their mouths on the backs of their hands.

"_Disgusting..._" he mused, looking the girls over."_But that one with the green lipstick... Like I said - been awhile since I've had fun..._"

Thoughts of his wife never even crossed his mind as he made a beeline for the door of the fine-looking establishment - he had completed a job two days ago, so he had money on him, and that was what mattered. He licked his lips, growling lustfully, and strode on purposefully towards the door. The young man was tall enough that he had to duck a bit more than most to get under the _noren_ curtain in the doorway. Himejima-sama looked him over - he had dark brown hair tied back in a low ponytail, brownish-red eyes, and a ruddy, suntanned complexion. His clothes weren't exactly rich-looking, but she could tell he definitely had money on him - if he didn't, he wouldn't be coming to _her_ establishment. Smiling in a flirtatiously elegant manner and trying to hide her bandaged arms in the sleeves of her kimono, she approached the young man.

"_Irrashaimase, sir,_" she said in a solicitous voice. "_I can tell by your looks that you do not like formalities, yes?_"

"_Aa,_" the young man said shortly - he really was in no mood to bother with the madam, but he supposed he had to turn on the charm or be charged extra.

"_Well then, what can we do for you tonight, my fine gentleman?_" asked Himejima-sama, bowing graciously. She turned and gestured to a girl standing silently at the entrance to the back of the establishment. "_Will Momoko-chan here be satisfactory?_"

Momoko, a small-built sixteen-year-old with peach-colored eyes and chestnut-brown hair, bowed respectfully and watched the man before her warily.

_There's something not right about him..._ she thought, feeling very cold in her stomach.

To her relief, the young man shook his head.

"_Iie, I don't think so,_" he said smoothly, grinning predatorily. "_I'm interested in a more mature girl... Maybe one with mahogany hair, pale skin, and... let's say... green lipstick?_"

Himejima-sama couldn't have cared less how this man knew of Yumi, so she just turned to Momoko.

"_Momoko-chan, could you run and fetch Yumi-chan?_" she asked the now-trembling sixteen-year-old in that falsely sweet voice, giving her command in the form of a question.

Momoko looked stricken for a moment - she had been the other farm girl with Yori, so she knew what was going on in the back, but she bowed respectfully, nodded, and scampered off.

"_Yumi-san! Yumi-san!_" she called as she ran down the correct hallway.

The three girls who had been cooling off outside after emptying their stomachs all shoved each other in an attempt to be the first one back in the room. None of them were stupid enough to let _anyone_ catch them outside - any witness, even one who could usually be trusted, could possibly report to Himejima-sama. Yumi pushed Nicole in first, then gracefully ducked in herself, followed by Nozomi, who still looked rather green. The smell of burned skin hung about the air in the room and Saki was still panting and whimpering in pain. Saru was still holding her shoulders down and Toriko was still sitting on her - Yori had gone out to the bath house and come back with some spare white towels that could be torn up for bandages. She was currently sitting by Saki's side, taking the tip of the knife and popping the blisters caused by the initial cauterizing. The blisters couldn't be allowed to rise, because if they popped later, they might re-open the entire wounds. This was what Momoko found when she ducked in behind the blanket/curtain serving as a door.

"_Yumi-san!_" she cried, bravely trying to keep her stomach down.

"_What is it, Momoko-chan?_" asked Yumi, trying to regain her dignity.

"_There's a man here asking specifically for you!_" Momoko blurted out in a rush. "_I'm supposed to bring you up to the front so he can get a look at you!_"

Yumi looked very much like she wanted to protest, but she shut her mouth and nodded resignedly.

"_Lead the way,_" she said wearily, following the younger girl out of the room and back up the hall.

Momoko led Yumi up to the front of the establishment and politely held the _noren_ curtain up out of the way - the older girl glided past as if she were on skates.

"_Hai... Hai, that's her,_" said the young man, his eyes roving over Yumi's body shamelessly as he watched her appraisingly.

"_And your name, sir?_" asked Himejima-sama, producing a brush pen and poising her hand over a roll of rice paper that served as a register.

"_Nakamura,_" he answered, smiling charmingly. "_Nakamura Makoto. So how much are we looking at?_"

Himejima-sama's eyes narrowed briefly as she looked at Yumi, being careful not to make eye contact.

"_Tonight, sir, for you, I'll say seventy-five yen..._" she said carefully. "_Will that be suitable?_"

"_Do you think perhaps we could make it sixty, mi'lady?_" inquired the young man, smiling that lady-killer smile at the madam. "_I still have to eat tomorrow._"

The madam regarded Yumi coolly, then looked back at the young man.

"_Seventy, if you would,_" she said calmly.

"_Mi'lady drives a hard bargain,_" responded Nakamura. "_Shall we say sixty-five?_"

"_Done,_" Himejima-sama said quickly, before Nakamura could make a lower offer. She gestured to the back of the establishment, addressing Yumi. "_Please escort Nakamura-san to a private room, Yumi, darling._"

Yumi gave a farce of a smile, baring her teeth at the madam, but neither Himejima-sama nor Nakamura-san noticed or particularly cared. Nakamura-san stepped forward and, like Hannya had done, offered his arm to his woman for the night, acting like a gentleman. With her eyes narrowed in distrust, Yumi regarded the man by her side coldly, leading him along the hallways to a room. Nakamura-san placed his free hand over the hand she had in the crook of his other arm, growling as he felt the soft warmth of her skin. Yumi was loath to admit it, but she felt tingles trail up her spine at this man's touch - there was something... exciting... about him. She lowered her eyelashes flirtatiously and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye - he wasn't looking at her, which gave her the chance to examine his features.

"_Now don't go falling in love with my looks there, sweetheart,_" Nakamura-san purred sensually. "_There's always more to a real man than that._"

"_Oh!_" Yumi exhaled intelligently, flustered and blushing a bit.

"_Will this room do?_" asked Nakamura-san, steering her to an open room on the right side of the hall.

"_Sure... Whatever you say... What did you say your name was?_" Yumi rambled, blushing at herself again for being so forward.

"_Nakamura Makoto,_" he replied, leading her into the room.

He didn't wait two seconds before pulling her close to his chest, tilting her face up to his - he was warmer than normal, Yumi noticed. While his right hand remained under her chin, keeping their lips pressed together, his left hand traveled down her body, stroking her rear before coming up to toy with her _obi_. Yumi was panting, but he hardly looked like he had exerted any energy at all as he pulled back. She was shaky on her feet, so he turned her around carefully, pressing her against his body again as he tugged a bit on the bow, letting the silk slide against itself as the bow came loose. As his left hand caught her left, pulling it up and pressing it to his face, he let his right hand part the panels of her kimono. Keeping his touch teasingly light, he slid them further apart until the robe was caught in the crooks of her arms.

"_Mmm..._" he growled, removing the band of green beads that held her hair back in a bun with his teeth and nuzzling into her long mahogany waves. "_So soft..._"

Texture only mattered to him when it came to one of two things - good sushi or women, preferably the kind that could be bought. Again, thoughts of his wife never even occurred to him as he let his hand stray to the ties of his _hakama_ and fiddle with them until they came loose. As the voluminous pants pooled around his ankles and he stepped out of them, guiding Yumi firmly with his left arm, his _gi_ fell open, hanging off his shoulders as loosely as Yumi's kimono hung off her arms. He pulled Yumi closer against him, just feeling her back against his bare chest. Yumi was panting - none of her clients had ever affected her like this before! Certainly some of them had known how to please a woman, but not like this, just with the simple act of undressing - he just managed to make the whole thing so... sexy...

Gently, Nakamura-san held Yumi away from him, turning her to face him and guiding her arms straight down to her sides, letting her kimono slip all the way off as he let go of her wrists. For the first time in so long, Yumi blushed self-consciously, bringing her arms up modestly to cover her chest. Nakamura-san grinned and licked his lips as he deftly untied his _fundoshi_ and let it drop down with his _hakama_. Before Yumi could react - and boy did she want to react! - he was there behind her, hefting her into his arms like a bride. As her arms slid around his neck, his tongue slipped between her lips, tangling with hers as he teased her mouth. Gracefully, with the ease of a landing crane, he bent down on his knee and laid Yumi on the futon in the center of the room. The lamp flickered, maybe wanting to go out, but stayed lit. Nakamura-san shifted so that his body was on top of Yumi's, pushing his knee in between her thighs, parting her legs...

"_Oh... Makoto-sama..._" panted Yumi, wrapping her arms around him again.

As she groaned for the first time, the lamp flickered again - this time, it went out.


	14. Obsidian Night

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 13

"Obsidian Night"

A little ways down the road, Miku shook his head - what the hell had just happened? It was bad enough that Reichi had overridden Souzou's decision and insisted that the guys take him (Miku) out for a night on the red-light district. But really - what in the world had just happened to him? That young woman seemed to be in an awful lot of a hurry - he hadn't even been able to get a good look at her and ask her what the trouble was. Reichi, Touya, and the rest didn't seem particularly perturbed by her, but Miku had been rather worried about her - what was she doing running around the red-light district? He had opened his mouth to voice the question, but Kyo had answered it already.

"_Jeez, I thought they kept those women inside,_" he said, not caring that his crude speech was shocking Miku half to death.

Of course, he thought - how could he have been so naive? The girl was obviously one of _them_ - Miku still couldn't make his mind form the word. A shudder trailed up his spine and he shook his head again, trying to will the shivers away. Souzou regarded the younger man with concern - obviously he had never been to a place like this before. If he only knew how far from right he actually was... Miku swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, trying not to listen to Touya and Kyo arguing about the finer points of certain intimate positions. Souzou wasn't disturbed by the conversation - he was just embarrassed that his two drunk-idiot friends were discussing things like that at the tops of their voices. Reichi was sulking - Souzou had taken the sake away from him when he had pinched the rear of a fifty-year-old woman. Adding injury to the insult, the woman - the wife of the man who ran the bar - had broken a serving tray over his head. Miku had wanted to burrow into the floor and hide during that whole experience.

"_Well you know how you can _XXXXXXXX_ when you're _XXXX XXXX" asked Touya, gesturing wildly at Kyo to try and get his point across. "_Reichi knows what I'm talkin' about, right?_"

Reichi's head jerked up and he looked around for a moment, giving a vague "Uh-huh" - Miku wanted to be sick and he felt the desire to contemplate his knife again.

"_Hey! My knife! It's gone!_" he yelped as his hand slid over an empty place on his belt.

"_That girl!_" yelled Kyo.

"_She must have been a pickpocket,_" Souzou said mildly - his mind was elsewhere.

"_Well duh,_" commented Reichi.

Miku sighed and looked off in the direction the girl had run.

"_No use in going after her now,_" he said tiredly, wanting to just get out of there and go back to camp.

"_Are you kidding?_" protested Touya. "_You can't just give up like---_"

"_Watch me,_" snapped Miku, not wanting to discuss the topic any further.

Touya opened his mouth to say something else, but Souzou held up his hand and cut him off - the argument had dragged his mind back to the present.

"_That's enough,_" he said irritably, turning the other way. "_Now if you all don't mind, there's someplace I'd like to be besides wandering around with two drunken idiots and a sore loser. If you can't settle on a place to stay the night in fifteen minutes, take Miku-kun back to camp._"

"_Aw, Souzou---_" whined Kyo.

"_That's an order,_" Souzou said firmly - he had been watching Miku grow steadily paler since their arrival. "_For godsakes, can't you see your antics are making him uncomfortable?_"

"_But---_" Touya opened his mouth to argue.

"_But nothing,_" Souzou cut in. "_Forget the fifteen minutes - back to camp now._"

Grumbling and cursing under their breaths, Touya and Kyo gave up - Reichi had gone back to sulking and was perfectly fine with going back to camp before things got any more embarrassing. Miku mouthed "_arigatou gozaimasu_" at Souzou from behind the taller man and gave his captain a grateful look. Souzou was determinedly not looking at him, busy giving Touya and Kyo an authoritative glare. The five men stood there looking around, the degrees of their discomfort varying, from Souzou, who was just irritated, to Miku, who still wanted to be sick. Finally, Reichi broke into the conversation - and what he had to say, given the past conversation, seemed almost mutinous.

"_But what about you?_" he asked, his tone almost belligerent. "_You're staying here?_"

"_It's nothing you need to be concerned about,_" Souzou told him, his tone saying he would hear no arguments. "_Get back to camp, all of you. I'll be back tomorrow morning._"

"_Totally not fair,_" grumbled Touya.

"_Tough,_" snapped Souzou. "_You two are too drunk to be around women anyway. You'd get thrown out. Now get back to camp before---_"

"_Okay, okay!_" Reichi interrupted, taking Touya and Kyo by their collars and knocking their heads together. "_We're going!_"

"_Erm... See you tomorrow, Captain,_" Miku said quietly, scratching the back of his head.

"_Thank you Miku-kun,_" replied Souzou, nodding his head as he watched Reichi drag off Touya and Kyo with Miku trudging along behind - he (Souzou) turned back and headed in the direction the girl had run.

----

----

Yotsuba Ranmaru looked over at the eighteen-year-old boy sitting across from him in the carriage, watching the boy's small frame being jostled around by the rough ride. Himura Battousai refused to look at the government official who was trying to play "favorite uncle" to him. The young redhead just leaned on his elbow, pushed the ugly green curtain out of the way, and stared boredly out of the window. _Tomorrow night, my foot_, he thought. They had been riding around doing Yotsuba's political errands for almost two days. It had required a lot of head-bowing and "yes, sir"-ing and the kind of general politeness and gentility that made Himura want to be sick. Yotsuba had been taking him around to put him through his paces in front of other officials of the new Meiji government. Himura'd had to do a few basic forms to prove himself to the newer officials who, by the look of him, thought him only a boy with a sword. Finally, Yotsuba, having got a few drinks under his belt, announced jovially that it was high time "the boy" got acquainted with Himejima Kiyoko and "the red-light district roses".

"_Oh, so that's what you've been keeping him cooped up in a carriage with you for!_" laughed an important official from the head of the army. "_Better let the boy have his fun soon!_"

"_Speaking of which, you promised me this last night,_" groused Himura, keeping his scowling face shadowed by his shaggy red bangs.

"_And if memory serves, you wanted no part of it,_" Yotsuba remarked, slurring a little bit as his face turned red.

"_I didn't say that,_" Himura insisted belligerently.

Yotsuba reached to pour himself another drink, but the army official, Yoshizumi Nobuyuki, caught his wrist, rebuffing him in a gentlemanly fashion.

"_I believe you've had a couple too many Yotsuba-san,_" Yoshizumi said complacently.

"_Ah, you're right,_" agreed Yotsuba, turning to the eighteen-year-old who sat slumped in an armchair half-asleep and addressing him in a boomingly drunken voice. "_Himura-kun! Time to go, lad!_"

Himura startled, then looked around at everyone, blinking with a sour look on his face.

"_Go where?_" he demanded, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

"_To Himejima-sama's of course!_" boomed Yotsuba, taking the boy by the collar and leading him out of the room amid cheers and catcalls.

And that was how Himura Battousai had wound up sitting on his backside, being bumped around in a carriage for almost three hours. Even his brain seemed to be rattling around due to the erratic jostling of the vehicle. His mood was going further and further south - he didn't want to be sitting in a carriage with a now half-drunk Yotsuba Ranmaru. He already wasn't too fond of government officials, politicians, et cetera, and right now he just wanted some food and a place to crash. Western hors d'oeurves didn't exactly suit his palate and he was tired of sitting in straigh-backed chairs. Yotsuba had promised him a good time and by gum, he wanted it NOW. About half an hour later, he was just about to open his mouth to ask "Are we there yet?" when the carriage lurched to a halt.

"_Well, here we are!_" announced Yotsuba-san, gesturing at the door of the carriage.

Himura just made a "hmph" noise and opened the door with a little more force than was necessary, hopping down from the carriage steps. He shook his head to get his red hair out of his face, cracked his neck, and blinked for a moment, then looked up at the building in front of him. It looked like a nice enough place, as buildings go, he decided - not that he really cared what a building looked like at all. He looked up at the banner - "Lady Himejima", was it? Yeah, so apparently this place was supposed to be REALLY nice - again, as _those_ places go. He (Himura) stood there, blinking sullenly as he waited for Yotsuba to get out of the carriage, pay the driver, and send him (the driver) off. Finally, the politician walked up, clapped his hand on Himura's skinny shoulder, and ushered the boy towards the doorway of the establishment.

"_Konbanwa, Himejima-sama,_" he said cheerfully, nodding at the madam and still steering Himura with one hand. "_So what do you have for us tonight?_"

"_Us?_" Himejima-sama asked in a flirtatiously curious voice.

Yotsuba nodded again, gesturing at Himura.

"_I promised Himura-kun here that he could have himself a good time on the government's money for a night,_" the older man said, patting Himura on the shoulder - Himura growled and shrugged the hand away.

"_Ah, I see,_" purred Himejima-sama, looking at Himura through lowered eyelashes as she addressed him. "_And what would Himura-kun be pleased by tonight?_"

Himura scowled at the diminutive honorific and made another "hmph" noise.

"_I do apologize, but what was that?_" the madam asked lightly.

"_Just let me see a few of 'em,_" the redhead said curtly.

"_And how much does Himura-kun's... patron... have on him?_" asked Himejima-sama, her kohl-lined eyes narrowing into their business expression.

"_I assure you, price is no object, Himejima-sama,_" said Yotsuba. "_Let the boy have whatever he wants and we'll settle up in the morning._"

The madam's eyes narrowed further - politicians paid well, so she had to foist the most expensive girl she had on the boy.

"_Shall we see what the boy's preferences are?_" she asked solicitously.

"_Hai, that we can do,_" agreed Yotsuba.

"_Shall I bring a few of my best girls out?_" prompted Himejima-sama.

Himura grunted an affirmative response and nodded his head a little. Himejima-sama made a soft sound of agreement and turned to exit through the now-curtainless door. She headed down the main hallway on silent feet to avoid disturbing patrons who were already active. Turning a corner, she had a thought - Himura was an assassin, wasn't he? If anyone could do something about the little resistance movement that was forming around the _gaijin_ girl, he could. Saki was going to be out of work for a while yet. It wasn't that the madam cared for the girl's injuries - she just knew that Saki wasn't attractive enough in her condition to be put back to work. Yumi already had work that night - it was that Nakamura fellow again - and it was Saru's time of the month. Arisu had indeed been given the week off, so that left Toriko and Nicole as parts of the "resistance movement". Toriko was a cheeky one, but anyone with sense knew that the best way to destroy a resistance movement was to subjugate its leader. Nicole would draw a higher price, being a foreigner, and her injuries were such that she probably wouldn't be able to resist even if she tried.

_And if Himura tires of her antics, he can just get rid of her and I'll be none the worse for it,_ she thought. _After all, I'll have to charge for her one way or another._

She turned down another hallway, one that had pieces of two broken doors stacked at the end of it, and made straight for the two rooms at the end.

"_Nikooru? Nikooru!_" she barked, barging into the room the _gaijin_ girl shared with Yumi and Saki.

Toriko looked up from braiding Saki's hair, bristling like an angry cat, though she remained silent - Nicole just yawned and continued picking at her fingernails.

"Yeah?" she said, looking up at the madam with one eyebrow raised.

"_Don't you 'yeah' me..._" growled Himejima-sama, then changing her tone to that awful sugary sweet voice. "_Nikooru-chan, you seem to be attracting quite a notable clientele. Here to see you is a man very important to the Revolution!_"

"Whose side are you on anyway?" demanded Nicole, her hazel eyes narrowing.

"_I have no side - not that it's any of your business,_" snapped the madam. "_We are a business, therefore we exist to make a profit. Money knows no side._"

"You're just like those dirty pigs," snarled Nicole, her lip curling in disgust. "Well I don't care if it's Toshimichi Okubo himself - I'm not sleeping with some filthy Imperialist bastard!"

Himejima-sama marched over and grabbed Nicole by one of her two braids, pulling her to her feet.

"_You're in no position to decide who you will and won't sleep with,_" spat the madam, yanking Nicole's braid. "_As a matter of fact, it's a young man named Himura and---_"

"Himura?" Nicole demanded, cutting in.

The auburn-haired girl paused for a moment, then a sweet little-girl grin spread over her face.

"Move!" she ordered, shoving her way past the shocked madam and ducking under the curtain/blanket in the doorway.

Nicole stormed up the hallways, ignoring the throbbing of her wounds. Along the way she coached herself - _Now don't screw this up. He might be Battousai now, but underneath, he's just Kenshin. This is going to be the easiest thing ever - just don't screw it up._ She pasted on her most brilliant smile and swept her braids back over her shoulders, adjusting her kimono to cover her bandages. Taking a deep breath, she slowed down her walking pace, trying to move gracefully, and practiced batting her eyelashes just right. Finally, she stopped for a moment and took her braids down - two feet of shining auburn waves could only help her cause. Then she took the two steps forward and made her grand entrance, head bowed and eyes cast shyly down.

"_Youkoso kimi ni wa,_" she said softly, in her best Japanese accent - the kind she copied from Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Sailor Moon. "How may this one help you fine gentlemen tonight?"

Himura and Yotsuba stopped and stared.

"_I've made my decision,_" Himura declared before Yotsuba could open his mouth.

"_That's my boy!_" encouraged the politician.

"Right this way, Himura-san," Nicole directed politely, gesturing at the doorway briefly before turning and heading in that direction, leaving Himura to wonder how she knew his name.

Himura almost tripped over his own foot in his haste to follow the girl in the purple kimono. Nicole grinned to herself, leading him down the main hall, then turning a corner. She was going to find the most private room she could and teach the hitokiri some rurouni manners - Kaoru-style. It took all she had to keep from cracking her neck and knuckles - that was just the best motivator in the world! She could hear Himura shuffling along behind her and kept changing her direction in the maze of hallways, almost able to hear his thoughts. On the other hand, she was glad it was an "almost", because she was pretty sure she didn't WANT to know the exact wording of the hormonal young man's thinking. Finally, she selected a room and stopped short, causing Himura to crash into her.

"This one would like to kindly ask Himura-san to be more careful," she said cheerfully, reminding herself of Soujiro.

"_Hmph..._" grunted Himura, pulling off his green hand guards and loosening his blue _gi_ from his whitish _hakama_.

"This one would also like to request that Himura-san..." Nicole paused, changing her tone from sweet and innocent to her most commanding, forceful tone. "... KEEP HIS SHIRT ON!"

"_Excuse me?_" spluttered Himura, thrown off-guard by this unusual girl. "_Who are you to tell me what to do?_"

He continued pulling at his _gi_ - however, Nicole stepped right up to him, invading his personal space, and grabbed his thin wrist.

"I said keep your shirt on, dammit," she growled at him, digging her fingernails into his wrist.

"_Let go of me, onna,_" snarled Himura, backing away and trying to shake her off - she just dug in harder. "_Just lay down and do what you're supposed to._"

"I don't think I want to," Nicole shot back, tilting her head and raising her eyebrows challengingly at him.

Himura sputtered for a moment - what was wrong with this girl? Then his eyes, those dangerous amber eyes, turned narrow and he stared at her. Nicole swallowed hard, but she stood her ground and stared right back at him - it was just Kenshin and she would die before she would let herself be scared of the old red-headed rurouni. _But remember,_ her mind nagged at her mercilessly - _he's not rurouni yet._ Still, she ordered the butterflies - no, make that giant fruit bats, flapping around in her stomach to quit it and growled threateningly at him. Chaos was coming out to play again, giving her an edge that made her feel manic almost to the point of losing control - but she could hold out a little longer. It was a standstill - for now, they weren't a swordsman and Chaos incarnate, they were just two eighteen-year-olds seeing who could be stubborn longer.

Himura could read emotions like books, but the only emotion he felt coming from this girl was a sort of frantic drive to action of SOME kind. He couldn't tell if she wanted to attack him or what was going on. For the first time, well, since his master, Himura was faced with someone he couldn't read - she was just too weird! She was forcibly sending out an emotional signal that was repeating "I like traffic lights" over and over. What in the hell were traffic lights? he wondered. He knew she wanted to GO, but he couldn't tell WHY and it was driving him BONKERS! So the two teenagers continued to stare it out, Nicole continuing to sing the Monty Python "Traffic Light" song in her head and Himura trying to figure out what on earth a traffic light was. It was still a contest of who could hold out longer out of sheer stubbornness. Sure Himura had been stubborn against Seijuuro Hiko the 13th, but Nicole had been stubborn against just about everyone she had ever met in her life. On the level of practice, she far outranked him, giving in far less often than he did. So they continued to stare at each other, about four feet apart.

"Hey Kenshin," said Nicole. "Have you ever had watermelon?"

"_What the fuck is a watermel---_" the redhead started, before yelping "_How did you know my name was Kenshin?_"

"WEASELS!" bellowed Nicole, taking one long stride forward and ruffling Himura's bangs over his face, then jumping away out of his arm's reach.

"_Why you---_" the assassin cut off. "_Weasels?_"

What was wrong with this girl? he wondered. Why wasn't she scared of him like she was supposed to be - like every other woman he had ever seen was? The redhead shook his ruffled bangs out of his face and watched and listened as the girl in front of him cracked her neck and knuckles noisily. Nicole cocked her head like a curious puppy, making her eyes go as wide as she could, and blinked owlishly at him. Himura's brow furrowed and it was all he could do not to bite his lip in confusion and downright frustration. Nicole couldn't read facial expressions very well, but she could tell she was winning.

Himura, however, was getting angry. That was just the way it happened - when the boy became confused, it upset him and he became angry. No matter how he tried to deny it, tried so hard to be something else, he was still just a teenage boy, nothing more. The thought angered him even more and a twitch, just a little twitch, quirked his nose. He cracked his own neck, with more force than Nicole, and took a step towards her. His urge was no longer the basic urge of a hormonal young boy's flesh - now, it was about power and control. A growl escaped his lips - he was going to have this girl just to prove he could! As he took another step towards her, he pulled his _gi_ free of the ties of his _hakama_ and let it hang loose on his shoulders.

"Kenshin?" asked Nicole, her head still tilted at him. "Kenshin, what's wrong?"

Himura growled again and threw his _gi_ across the room - Nicole tensed in response and cracked her neck again. As he took another step forward, nearly invading her personal space, she wondered if she should take a step backwards. _No_, she thought - this was still a contest of stubbornness and she, Nicole Christine Barrington, could win it. Not just _could_, she declared in her mind - she WOULD win it! Himura, still snarling threateningly, now invaded his opponent's personal space, starting to fiddle with the ties of his _hakama_. Nicole bit her lip and refused to back down. The redhead was about to completely undo the waist ties of the garment when Nicole decided that enought was too much.

"I don't think so, buddy..." she growled, grabbing his hands and trying to wrest them away from the ties. "I don't care who you are... I don't care who you become. You will not touch me."

"_You can't very well stop me_," snapped Himura, trying to break the girl's grip on his wrists and throw her off. "_Grr... Let go!_"

But Nicole had nothing if not one hell of a good grip and a flexible spine - no matter which way Himura twisted, she could twist too. Anyone who had ever played a game of Mercy with her could vouch for that - at one point, she pulled her signature move, bending over backwards, Matrix-style. As icing on the cake, her almost-half-inch-long fingernails could practically tear your skin off. As of that moment, the first and middle fingers of her right hand were digging into the skin of Himura's left wrist with her thumb locked over them, her last two fingers gripping too. Her left hand was locked in a deathgrip around his right wrist, all four fingernails digging into the soft underside.

"I won't let go, Jack!" Nicole declared in a theatrically breathy voice, though she knew good and well he wouldn't get the reference. "I'll never let go!"

Theatrics weren't helping - Himura was almost able to break her grip. Hell, he almost broke one of her fingers! Keeping her grip locked as tightly as she could, Nicole was now trying to nail Himura in the shins with her heel. She knew he far outranked her in upper body strength, but he didn't have a size advantage over her like Ashley did. Ashley was a good few inches taller than Nicole and she knew it. However, Nicole and Himura were just about the same size - to be perfectly accurate, Nicole was actually half an inch taller. He, Himura, couldn't break Nicole's grip by pulling her arms out to the sides and over-stretching them like Ashley could do - however, he tried and...

**_R-R-RIP! CLANK!_**

As he snapped both arms out to the sides as hard and fast as he could, the front of his _hakama_ split right down the middle and the back ties ripped off altogether. Nicole fought her first reflex and refused to look down, though she felt his sword land on her foot (accompanying the **clank**). Valiantly suppressing the urge to throw her head back and laugh, she kept her eyes trained on Himura's shoulder. In the back of her mind, she was snickering about what Ashley would say about the current situation. As she dug her fingernails more firmly into Himura's skin, she could almost hear her best friend's voice in her mind.

_"Um... Nicole?" _the mental voice wavered. _"Kenshin's got no pants on!"_

"Hn..." squeaked Nicole.

"_Huh?_" spluttered Himura.

"Hn-hn..." went Nicole. "Hn... Heh heh... Eh heh heh..."

The American girl's face was the same color as Himura's hair.

"Heh... Ha!" she burst out. "HA HA HA!"

Her shoulders started to shake - Himura was actually becoming rather frightened.

"AHH-HA-_HA_-HA!" roared Nicole, doubling over and nearly falling as she was overcome by paroxysms, absolute FITS of uproarious laughter.

"_Ima... Now... Now you stop that!_" ordered Himura, pointing at her just like he was ordering a frisky puppy to stop barking - Nicole should know, considering her beagle back home. Himura's voice rose. "_I said stop that! YAMERO!_"

He bellowed the last word, but Nicole paid no attention - she was sure that in some twisted, thoroughly effed-up universe, her best friend was laughing too.

"_Hey!_" yelled Himura, no longer feeling like a warrior. "_Hey, I could kill you in a second, y'know!_"

Nicole, with much of a fight, was able to stop laughing for a few moments. Her shoulders were still shaking and her face was shining red. A few more giggles escaped her lips and she bit down on the lower one to cut the giggles off - all that did was cause her to spray spit from between her teeth. With a shaking hand, she wiped her mouth, still biting into her lower lip almost hard enough to draw blood. Still shaking all over and looking quite insane, she looked up at Himura, trying to make her hazel eyes go wide. This was incredibly hard to do when they were crinkled at the corners, swollen, puffy, and red from tears of hysterical laughter. Breathing hard, wiping tears from her face, and almost convulsing with suppressed laughter, she managed to open her mouth.

"Eh heh... Kenshin... Ken-... ...-shin's... got... no _paints_ on!" she grated out, her voice rising in pitch and volume as she pronounced "pants" as "paints" and fell over in hysterics once more.

"_Oro?_"

----

----

Himejima-sama and Yotsuba could hear muffled noise coming from the very back of the establishment, but that was all it was - muffled noise. They couldn't tell what was actually happening and each of them was forming an opinion in their own head. Yotsuba assumed, quite happily, that Himura was getting the government's money's worth and having himself a hell of a time with the girl - she had seemed so perfect, soft-spoken and demure. She even spoke perfect Japanese (or so he thought) and had a charmingly girlish accent, so rare for a foreigner. He, Yotsuba, was in the process of deciding on a girl for himself, carefully watched by Himejima-sama.

She, Himejima-sama, had quite a different story forming in her mind of what was happening in the back room of her establishment. The noises were rather medium-pitched and Himura had a lowish voice, so she could assume it was him making the sounds. At a few points, she heard high, feminine screeches and assumed that Nicole had angered him and that he had made her pay for it. But from what she could tell, the girl was still alive, so he, Himura, must have broken her somehow - given the amount of time it had taken for the noise to start, he had broken her easily. So she, Himejima-sama, was actually better-off than she thought she would be. When Nicole recovered, her attitude would be dramatically altered, into the submissive, obedient dove she was supposed to be. She had no idea that the noises were actually coming from Nicole, who was still roaring with laughter.

Yotsuba had a selection of six girls in front of him. One of them, of course, was Toriko - she wasn't going to be getting any time off until her next time of the month, that was for sure. Nozomi, the former pickpocket, stood to the right of Toriko, the thin horizontal scar on her cheek curved with her cocky grin. She was tense, but she didn't show it - ready to fight, just like she had been in the old days. Her deep green eyes were like two clumps of forest moss, a bit darker than Saru's, and they glinted with a warrior's light. Hanging down past her shoulders was a medium-length curtain of dark chestnut-brown hair - she didn't take well to that "put it up" nonsense. It had been her identifying feature out on the streets, her pride and joy - the beautiful pickpocket with the untied hair. Pulling herself out of her memories, she focused her challenging gaze back on the government official - she liked a reasonable amount of trouble.

Yori, the Kansai farm girl, stood a little bit behind Toriko, peeking out from behind the older girl's left shoulder and trying not to be noticed. Her wide, charcoal-colored eyes were narrowed nervously and her straight, medium-brown hair, about the same color as Sailor Jupiter's, just brushed her shoulders. Yotsuba's eyes passed briefly over her and he looked away in distaste - too flat-chested and childish. His eyes traveled over to the girl standing beside her, the one with the peach-colored eyes who had been offered to Nakamura-san. Momoko stood there, smiling like she was supposed to, but she was hoping he wouldn't take her tonight. She wasn't proud of what she was, but she had accepted it and had learned to deal with it - she just didn't like dealing with men who had such profound lolita complexes, preferring the young, handsome ones. Thankfully, Yotsuba's eyes skimmed over her too.

Over by Nozomi was an older woman, maybe about twenty-five, with perfectly done-up jet-black hair and make-up done like a _geisha_'s - she only wished she could have been a _geisha_. But instead of selling her to the _geisha_ house when she was young, her parents had sold her to Himejima-sama when her figure had developed. Her name was Murakami Sakurako and she was right up there with Yumi in popularity. The reason for this? She was an American size 38C, quite full-figured by the Japanese standard. Her parents had intended for her to be a normal girl and get married, so they'd had her trained in housework and such - her three older sisters had made fine brides, they told her. But then, when she turned thirteen, her figure began to develop beyond what her sisters' had been. She had developed a perfect hourglass figure with an incredibly full bust - young men were coming for her hand one after another. However, her father figured "Why waste money on a bride price when I can just make money off her straight?" So instead of marrying, she had been sold to Himejima-sama and a certain percent of her profits went back to her parents. It was she who Yotsuba's eyes stopped on, skipping the other girl entirely.

"_I think she will be satisfactory tonight, Himejima-sama,_" announced the politician, gesturing at the woman who was almost spilling out of her kimono alluringly.

"_You have chosen well, Yotsuba-san,_" the madam replied ingratiatingly. "_For tonight, I shall say one hundred and fifty yen. Is this satisfactory?_"

"_That would be most satisfactory, Himejima-sama,_" agreed Yotsuba.

He handed over his money and escorted Sakurako to the back of the establishment - for the sake of readers' stomachs, the authoress shall not go into details of their coupling.

----

----

Captain Sagara Souzou meandered down the main street of Edo's red-light district, his red bandanna flapping about in the night wind. His hands were as deep down in his pockets as his mind was deep down in thought - in fact, when he shifted his hand to alleviate a wrist cramp, he managed to rip a large hole in the seam of his right pocket. He swore under his breath when he heard the fabric tear, but he just shoved his hand further into his pocket. His almond eyes, the reason he was called in certain circles "the jewel of Japan", scanned the banners and signs around him. He wasn't quite sure where he was going - he had been rather tipsy the other night - but he had a fairly good idea. However, it was becoming a bit tough to keep his mind on his route - it was somewhat busy elsewhere.

It wasn't like him, not at all, he thought - he knew his way around women perfectly. For Godsakes, he knew he was good-looking and strong - if he could charm a woman with his looks, he could get her another way. Normally, for that kind of women, he had no remorse - it wasn't as if he ever hurt them intentionally, but... It was difficult for his brain to mull over the next part of the sentence. It wasn't as if he ever took their emotional status into account, and it was true, he could be a little rough sometimes if it felt better to him. But it wasn't like he thought of all women like that, a self-righteous brain elf protested stubbornly. Of course if he came in contact with a respectable woman, whether she was a waitress or his best friend's wife, he was a perfect gentleman to her!

But that one woman - no... he didn't know how old she was, but she definitely wasn't a woman yet, just a girl who was frightened and alone in a strange place. Never before had he wondered about a disreputable woman's past - he got what he wanted and that was that. Most of the time, he wouldn't even remember her face, let alone her name, but now... Something was just different - that was the only way he could put it. He wondered what had happened to that _gaijin_ girl, how she had possibly ended up in a place like that. The madam had said he was to be the first to have her, so it was possible, if not out-and-out _probable_ that she had only arrived - been delivered? -just that day.


	15. Bleeding Lip

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 14

"Bleeding Lip"

**Back In 2006**

Ashley was going through Nicole's things again, the contents of her purse spread out in her lap and on the bench on both sides of her. The notebooks were closed - she wasn't ready to let people look through them yet, not while SHE wasn't ready to finish looking through them. She, Ashley, picked up Nicole's battered pink Sailor Moon wallet - it had manga pictures of all the Sailors on it, though most of the Outers were almost peeled off from use - and opened it. Carefully, she rifled through the contents. There was a dirty, almost unreadable ticket stub from _Mean Girls_ and a quarter in one pocket. There was no cash in the cash holder, but there was plenty of other junk. Ashley's heart sank even lower as she looked over receipts from Suncoast, remembering how the guys there had always looked out for Nicole. It just sort of added to the gloom that now Suncoast was gone too - she wondered if the guys from there would hear about what happened. As she turned the wallet over, a couple of pictures fell out - they had both come with wallscrolls.

One of them was a picture of Sesshoumaru on a starry night - Nicole's friend Joey had given it to her to keep her from squealing. But Ashley didn't pay much attention to it, since she didn't know who Sesshoumaru was - to her, it was just another of Nicole's many _bishounen_. Then the other picture caught her eye and tugged at her heart. It had come with the first wallscroll Nicole ever got. Ashley knew her best friend had a grand total of three wallscrolls - much less than the average _otaku_, but Nicole had her reasons. One, she didn't have the wall space or the money for a bunch of them. Two, she liked having ones that meant something to her, instead of just having them to have them. The last one she had gotten was from Ashley - it featured the Bebop crew, minus Ein, with Spike's face in between Edward's and Faye's and Jet on the end. The second one depicted Super Sailor Moon in between Sailor Saturn and Mistress 9 - she had never put it up, because she couldn't find room. The first one, the one shown in miniature on the small, slightly torn piece of paper, was the one that made Ashley cry.

It was the only wallscroll that featured Nicole's favorite _bishounen_ ever - Souzou Sagara. It showed Ashley and Nicole's favorite Rurouni Kenshin men. Kenshin was in the front, half shirtless and brandishing a sword. Behind him to the left was Sanosuke Sagara, his red wristband in his mouth. Directly in the back was Aoshi Shinomori, Nicole's second favorite - she had cosplayed as Misao many times. And right there, beside Sano and above Kenshin, was Souzou. Ashley could remember the day Nicole had gotten that wallscroll - in the same store as they had found the collection of Kenshin themes on CD. She could remember how Nicole squealed and how she had begged her mother to pay the twelve dollars and fifty cents for her. Of course, her mother had complied. Tears ran down Ashley's cheeks as she turned the small picture over in her hand, looking from one warrior's face to the next. Nicole had been certifiably obsessed with Souzou, sometimes insisting that she could feel him with her and writing sometimes questionable fan fictions about him.

Ashley knew the history behind Rurouni Kenshin - she and Nicole both had the profile book from Viz. Of course, even before that, Nicole had done research and found out how Souzou had been a real person. Then things that scared Ashley started happening. Having Souzou as an imaginary friend was one thing - she was used to things like that from Nicole - but then Nicole started saying things that could have potentially been labeled psychotic. She had started saying that she thought she was Souzou's reincarnated wife and that she and Souzou would find each other again. Ashley was a staunch Catholic girl and refused to believe this hogwash about reincarnation, which frustrated Nicole. But she put up with Nicole's rantings until they scared her. She even put up with Nicole making out with the picture of Souzou on her computer - well, at least until she walked into the room. But she never said anything to anybody - that was just the way Nicole was. It was actually kind of fun pretending to go along with it sometimes.

"Maybe she'll find him now..." Ashley whispered, almost unaware that she was really speaking.

She shook her head - that kind of talk was just garbage and she was just thinking that way because of the stress.

"What was that?" asked Natalia, who had been watching her friend carefully.

"It's nothing," Ashley said sadly.

Natalia knew it wasn't "nothing", but she let it go.

"Oh," she said quietly.

Kristen spoke up.

"Well, I'm going to go back on campus and try to find our stuff," she said finally. "Ashley, I'll bring you yours if I see it, okay?"

Ashley nodded - it was true what she said, that she no longer cared about her stuff. Even her purse - she could replace all the makeup and get a new cell phone. Her rings were on her hands, including the one from her mother, and it wasn't like she carried around things that were irreplaceable like Nicole did - Nicole practically lived out of her purse. _Speaking of Nicole's purse_, Ashley's mind interjected, _let's just keep looking_. So Ashley carefully tucked the pictures and receipts back where they belonged, folded the wallet up, and stuck it back in Nicole's purse. Something hard and plastic brushed her hand and a flashing blue light caught her eye - it was Nicole's cell phone. Automatically, she flipped it open. As usual, the picture of Souzou stared back at her - Nicole insisted on having Souzou always with her. Just as she used to do, Ashley pressed the button that would bring up Nicole's phone book and looked at the list. At the top of the list was her friend Alexandra, the one who had introduced her to _yaoi _- Ashley shuddered and scrolled down. Next were a pair of twin boys Nicole had gone to school with for a while - she'd had a major crush on one of them since middle school. Ashley scrolled until she found some more names that she recognized - people from the anime club that Nicole was part of.

"That's it..." she said softly. "Call them first."

But who to call? She settled on the first name she saw that she could place a face with - Nicole's friend Molly, from the old club at MediaPlay. Her hand shook as she scrolled back to Molly's name and she hesitated. She could hardly believe this day was real herself! How could she tell someone else? But Molly was down-to-earth and, though intimidating at first, fairly easy to talk to. Ashley had a feeling that if she talked, Molly would listen. Yes, that was it - she would know what to do! Ashley looked around and wondered if she should tell anyone about the call. No, then people would just offer her conflicting advice - "No, call her parents first" or "Just let the school handle it" and things like that. So finally Ashley just hit the little button with the green phone on it - the one that meant "Call". The phone made the sound it always made when it was connecting, then she could hear the other end ringing.

"Hello?" asked Molly's voice - Ashley's voice froze. "Uh, hello?"

Ashley made a choking noise.

"You okay there?" asked Molly, thinking it was Nicole she was talking to.

Ashley didn't know when she had ever been less okay.

"Um... This is Ashley actually," she said, trying to force her voice into doing what she wanted it to.

"Uh-huh," said Molly. "So what's up?"

The way she sounded so matter-of-fact made Ashley want to cry again.

"This is kind of an emergency..." she said in a wavering voice.

Molly could hear noise in the background - people were talking in loud voices, some trying to yell over others.

"Yeah, could you speak up a little?" she asked.

"Nicole... It's Nicole..." Ashley forced out, her voice rising a little in pitch and volume.

Ashley now had Molly's full attention - sure Nicole did stupid things all the time, but no one had ever actually called the club about it. Normally, they just heard it from Nicole once she was through being grounded or from somebody that Nicole told while she was grounded. And so far, the stories never included serious emergencies - the closest thing to one was when Nicole had gone ice skating and almost broken her tailbone falling. Again, nobody besides Nicole ever called the club to tell them about her antics - so this had to be serious. Not only that, but Ashley sounded upset.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?" asked Molly, her brow furrowing as she reached for her hat.

Ashley swallowed hard and all at once, the story poured out. She told Molly about how Nicole had been so annoying that morning, then a few broken details. For a while, she could only cry and get incoherent sounds out, but she pulled herself together and told the older girl all that she knew. She remembered seeing the water being pulled out of the ground and out of the sky, seeing the giant ball of water forming in front of her best friend. Molly was getting seriously worried - she had never heard of anything like this before, even dealing with Nicole! She wasn't even sure if she had ever heard of this happening anywhere, even in anime!

"Okay... Let me get this straight..." she said slowly. "It blew up... And now Nicole's just... gone..."

"That's right," Ashley replied in a hollow voice.

"Have they called the police?" asked Molly, rather shell-shocked but keeping her head on straight.

"And the firemen," added Ashley. "Yeah, they're all over the place."

"And they can't..." Molly didn't want to say 'find her body', so she just said "... find her?"

Ashley couldn't answer, so Molly figured it out on her own.

"I'll call everybody I can," she said in her most serious voice.

Ashley made a small "uh-huh" noise and she and Molly hung up at the same time. The first person she, Molly, figured she should call was James, the president of the club. True, he would probably be sleeping now, but he would just have to wake up - this was important. She scrolled through her phone book and found his entry - but should she call Corrie first? No, she was at school, so she, Molly, would call her mom a little bit later. Then Molly thought of calling Mandy, but decided against it, unconsciously afraid of the reaction she might get to the news. So James it was, then - she hit the "Call" button. Her phone made the little connect-y noise and then...

**Ring-ring! Ring-ring!**

"Hrmph?" grunted James's voice.

Molly had been right - he had indeed been sleeping. (Author's note: Damn graveyard shifts...)

"Hey, uh, James?" said Molly. "We gotta problem... It's Nicole."

James was instantly awake - if it was enough to get this kind of reaction out of Molly, then it had to be serious.

----

--

Souzou Sagara pulled his left hand out of his pocket - the non-ripped one - and examined his wallet - yes, he had plenty of money on him. If he talked to Reichi, he would have gotten the advice that was currently propelling itself through his mind - he could almost hear his best friend saying "_Hey buddy, you need a good lay_". He rolled his eyes heavenward, letting his gaze be taken in by the shining stars above him. Right above him, blinking disapprovingly, was the constellation Orion the Hunter - Souzou could have slapped himself. Really! Thinking the constellation was feeling disapproval... Was he going crazy or just going soft? He made a "hmph" noise and crammed his hand and wallet back into his pocket - what was he thinking? he asked himself in annoyance.

But part of him knew exactly what he was thinking - he was thinking about the other night. That girl... Something about her had affected him that night - something kept him from touching her. _Hmph..._ he thought again - he really was going soft if he was still thinking about some whore. It was like he had failed as a man or something - he'd had a perfect opportunity and he had denied it to himself. But something else inside him - it was his heart, but he wouldn't let himself realize it - was whispering to him very softly, trying to tell him that he had done the right thing. But his mind, his typical male mind, was nursing its wounded pride - that was the reason he was dragging himself back to that place. He wasn't going to shuffle off with his tail tucked - he was going to go back and get what he paid for. As soon as he found himself at the door, he squared his shoulders, pulled his hands out of his pockets and marched in.

"_Himejima-sama?_" he inquired, stopping in the entranceway to unlace his boots.

"_Hai?_" answered the madam. Then she noticed Sagara and her face lit up. "_Irrashaimase, Sagara-san!_"

Sagara didn't mince words on the subject.

"_I want to see the gaijin girl,_" he declared, his tone telling her he would hear no arguments - that tone was normally reserved for his troops. "_Where is she?_"

Himejima-sama's face fell, but she perked it right back up again.

"_Gomen nasai, Sagara-san - my sincerest apologies - but she is with another client at the moment,_" she said sweetly, turning and making a sweeping gesture with her hand. "_But perhaps you would be interested in one of our other girls? Say, Toriko-chan here?_"

Sagara glanced at the girl with the honey-colored eyes, then glared at the madam.

"_Iya. I'll wait,_" he said sharply, not caring how wrong that sounded.

At that moment, a loud roar was heard coming from the back of the establishment.

----

----

**February of 1866**

Himura, dressed in nothing but his _fundoshi_, was standing in the middle of the room, panting hard and trying to regain his breath after that long, loud, wordless roar. Nicole had stopped laughing, but she looked as though she might start it up again at any moment. For a long time, they just looked at each other, two eighteen-year-olds still in a contest of pure and unadulterated stubbornness. Finally, Nicole decided to throw the contest - she picked up Himura's sword and took it out of its _saya_, tossing the sheath aside. She pointed the sword at Himura, feeling power and control surging through her veins as a manic grin spread across her face. Himura actually looked rather frightened - he had never faced a woman with a sword before, and certainly not in nothing but his underwear! Nicole giggled - she might not have been very good at reading people, but Himura was so obvious that even she could read his thoughts. For a brief moment, she thought of what Seijuuro Hiko might do if he saw his _baka deshi_ in such a situation - laugh uproariously most likely, she figured.

"Listen here, you," she commanded. "You think you're something because you're the _hitokiri Battousai_, and I'll admit you're the best with a sword that there ever was, is, or will be. But you know what else you are, right now, at this moment?"

He stared at her, clenching his teeth.

"You're a bully, that's what you are," Nicole snapped at him, pointing at him with his own sword. "You're turning into one of the people you hate - you're using your power to oppress the weak and that's not what you stand for! You listen to me, Himura Kenshin... Shinta... whatever your name is. Cos it's certainly not "Battousai"."

Himura stared at her with his jaw clenching even tighter.

"_Onna... How did you know my name?_" he growled.

"I just do," Nicole shot back. "I don't have to tell you why, because you won't listen to me."

"_Just what do you think you're doing?_" he demanded. "_Playing with a sword?_"

"You sound just like Saitoh," snarled Nicole, feeling powerful and able to stand against anything. It wasn't Chaos that was coming out of her now - it was the one her tae kwon do master had seen in her, the warrior's spirit within her. "Don't talk down to me. In case you didn't notice, the tables have been turned and you're the one in defense position now."

Himura's eyes narrowed and he did something Nicole never expected. Not caring about the gash he cut into his palm, he wrapped his hand around the blade and wrenched it from Nicole's hands. Using a similar move to breaking a real opponent's stance, he rammed the end of the handle into her solar plexus, sending her back with a pained grunt. He slung the blood from his hand and flipped the sword around, catching the handle and flicking his own blood off the blade. His eyes were a deeper amber color now. The only thought in Nicole's head was _Oh shit... I'm gonna die..._ Her eyes widened for a moment, but then she felt a certain kind of serenity - the kind of serenity only felt by those about to die feeling like they accomplished something.

"_Kono ama... You bitch..._" growled Himura, leveling his sword at her throat. "_I hope you're ready to die, that I am..._"

Nicole's face lit up as if she had just seen the light of day for the first time in years.

"Kenshin! You said it!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide.

Caught by surprise, Himura stopped pulling his sword back.

"_I said what?_" he asked, now genuinely perplexed.

"You said 'that I am'!" she squealed, wanting to glomp him but afraid to move. "You're changing!"

"_Shut your mouth,_" he ordered. "_You've made a fool of the wrong man, ama._"

He finished pulling his sword back - Nicole's eyes widened, then she squinched them shut.

"You're not a man..." she whispered. "I never thought I'd be saying this, but you're just like Saitoh says you are - you're a kid harassing people with a sword."

"_I said, 'Shut your mouth',_" growled Himura.

And he thrust his sword forward - Nicole screamed and felt a burning pain... in her lip?

"What the---?" she asked, her voice choked. "Why---?"

She cracked her eyes open, her body shaking all over. There was Himura, standing there with his sword hanging limply by his side and his face dejected. In fact, he looked as though he were thinking about crying. Nicole raised her hand and carefully touched her lower lip. As she pulled her hand away, she saw the blood on her fingers, then she felt it running down her chin and gasped belatedly. He could have taken her head right off, but he just pushed the very tip of his sword into her lip, splitting it open in the very same place it had been injured twice before. She doubled over, spitting blood all over the floor, but not throwing up like she normally would. Himura looked down at her with a sad look in his eyes - wait a minute... Were they... violet?

"Kenshin?" asked Nicole, looking up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

"_I did tell you to shut your mouth, that I did,_" he said sullenly.

"You said it again," commented Nicole, surprised at how calm she was now, even after looking the red-haired death in the face - the she surprised herself with her boldness. "Why didn't you kill me?"

"_I saw no reason to... that I didn't?_" Himura, though his eyes were amber once again, stumbled over the last few of his words. "_You're just annoying. I guess... I guess I don't have to kill people just because they piss me off and I happen to be able to..._"

"Well, you're not _rurouni _yet," Nicole said cheerfully, though her voice shook a little bit. "But you're getting there. So, Kenshin, do you at least have a renewed respect for women?"

"_I will as soon as I have new hakama,_" grouched Kenshin, his voice not quite so petulant. "_I have to admit, you're a lot stronger than you look._"

He held up his hand, displaying the fingernail gouges in his wrist.

"I could say the same thing about you," Nicole replied coolly. "Here... I think if you just tie it a little different, you can still wear those."

Kenshin went over, blushing, and gathered up the remains of his _hakama_ - stumbling a little, he pulled them on and stood there, holding the sides up.

"_Could you help me with this?_" he asked, his voice rather strained. "_This was your idea after all... that... that it was..._"

Nicole, blushing furiously as well, took hold of the two halves of the front of Kenshin's _hakama_ and tied them together in a square knot. It wouldn't show anything that shouldn't be shown - his _gi_ would see to that - but he would still need new ones after a while. As for the ties that had been ripped clean off, she instructed Kenshin to hold his _hakama_ up as far as they were supposed to be and she just tied the loose ties around his waist. It made for a bit of a tighter fit than usual, but Kenshin found it satisfactory and was able to move just fine in it. Then he just threw his _gi_ on and let it hang open - Nicole wouldn't dare say anything, but she rather liked it that way. She smiled at him and, just on impulse, gave him a big hug. Kenshin looked at her strangely, holding his arms out to the sides.

"It's called a hug, that it is!" chirped Nicole, her voice happy and girlish - somehow, it worked for her.

Awkwardly, Kenshin put his arms around Nicole and gave her a quick squeeze - they pulled apart shortly.

"Now go on, and don't ever go to a place like this again," she told him, in his own voice from the anime - he just stared at her.

"_One thing first..._" said the redhead. "_Might I have your name, please?_"

"It's Nicole," she said, throwing her hair back over her shoulder in the classic gesture of Sailor Mars. "But you can call me _Niki-dono_!"

"_Ano... Hai... Niki-dono..._" replied Kenshin, smiling his familiar _rurouni _smile at her - it was rather frightening to see that smile coming from the amber-eyed face, but there was always time to change.

The redhead, looking disheveled and a bit confused, turned to leave - Nicole rolled her eyes and followed him.

----

----

It was a shocked, dumbfounded Himejima-sama and a startled, completely bewildered Captain Sagara Souzou that first met the eyes of a confused, ruffled-looking Himura Kenshin and a smiling, absolutely glowing Nicole Christine Barrington. Nicole veritably waltzed into the front room, her hair flowing out behind her. Kenshin looked like he wanted very much to melt into a little puddle of Kenshin-goop and sort of burble away. Sagara stared at the pair of them in disbelief, his almond eyes almost popping out of his handsome face. Himejima-sama stared for a moment, then she glared at Nicole - Kenshin inched away from the American girl, feeling uncomfortable under the overbearing madam's gaze. The madam noticed this and gave the redhead a rather ferocious smile, trying unsuccessfully to ease his discomfort.

"_Well, Himura-kun,_" she grated out carefully - she wanted to tell him he was leaving rather early, but she didn't. "_Were you satisfied with your experience tonight?_"

Kenshin looked around at everyone. Toriko, Nozomi, Yori, and Momoko were standing there in a row, trying to paste politely puzzled expressions on their faces. The Tomo look-alike was having very little luck - she just looked like she had been over-inflated and was ready to burst. Nozomi had mastered the expression, but her eyes almost gave her away, twinkling mischievously at Nicole. Yori had skipped the politely puzzled look and just looked completely puzzled - Nicole noticed and wondered _Are all Osaka folks like... well... Osaka?_ Momoko looked puzzled, but she also looked sort of interested - she had already heard stories about the new girl, the foreigner who seemed to be turning everything upside-down. Was this what they were talking about? The pair of them, Kenshin and Nicole, both looked decidedly worse for the wear - Kenshin's _hakama_ were obviously damaged and Nicole sported blood stains all over her kimono, plus a trail of it streaming down her chin from her lip.

"_Hai..._" Kenshin said quietly, feeling like his words were being evaluated."_Very... interesting..._"

Sagara's ears perked up. _Interesting_ - that was the word he had used as a euphemism to describe _his_ experience with the foreign girl. Well, he had said _flexible_, to his friends, but the word he had used in his mind was _interesting_. _Euphemism_ - there was another key word in the situation. _Interesting _was the only word he could come up with that would throw his friends off his case - that and his whole bullshit story that he had come up with later. He looked the younger man up and down - red hair and a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek. (Author's note: I hate Tomoe and going into her part of the story would just make me angry, so I won't.) This had to be _him_, the swordsman who was already a legend among the revolutionaries - the infamous _hitokiri_, Himura Battousai. The Sekihoutai captain closed his eyes and bowed his head for a moment, then opened them and regarded Himura carefully.

"_Hajimemashite, Himura-kun,_" he said quietly, though there had been no introductions - the younger man needed none.

"_The same to you,_" the redhead responded in a gruff voice. "_Who're you?_"

"_Watashi wa Sagara Souzou desu,_" he replied, his speech still quiet and very formal - he wasn't sure what kind of attitude he had towards the younger man yet.

"Well this has been sufficiently awkward!" Nicole commented pleasantly.

"_Be quiet,_" ordered Himejima-sama.

Nicole rolled her eyes, sighed, and folded her arms over her chest, but she said no more.

"_Yotsuba-dono can take my part of the bill,_" announced Kenshin. "_I'm hungry._"

And with that, he walked out, leaving everyone speechless for awhile.

----

----

While his captain was facing some mental problems, as well as physical, Miku was faring, if anything, worse. The ribbing he was enduring from his new comrades only got worse as they got closer to the camp. Reichi was the ringleader of the three of them - him, Touya, and Kyo - and he was coming down on Miku like a brick on a roach. He, Reichi, had finally pried the answer he was looking for out of the younger man - yes, Hasegawa Miku was still a virgin at nineteen years old. Touya and Kyo had jumped right on that topic and Miku wondered if it would ever end. Sure his brothers picked on him about being a virgin since he was old enough to possibly have lost it - 'round about thirteen, he vaguely recalled.


	16. Scattered Embers

Oiran no Gaijin

"The Foreign Courtesan"

By Serenity-chan

Chapter 15

"Scattered Embers"

Warning: This chapter contains non-explicit descriptions of forced intimacy and violence.

**Around November 1866**

Almost eight months had passed since that crazy, wonderful, powerful night. The Sekihoutai had moved on, as had the Shinsengumi. Spring had sprung forth with greenery and then coiled back up again in its time. All the sakura trees, including the large one on the main road of Edo, had bloomed and their blossoms had subsequently scattered. Summer had come, in all its sweltering, sickening, sticky heat, and then gone again with a steady storm of cooling rain that made the streets turn to warm mud. Autumn had, well, _fallen_ on the land, bringing its changes of colors, eventually turning everything dull and some varying shade of brown. Himura Battousai still had two years before he would take up his reverse-blade sword, but he hadn't forgotten his night with the most interesting woman, nay, _the_ _most interesting person_ he had ever met in his life. Once in a while, he wondered what had become of her – she had been so spirited, even able to knock him down a couple of notches… Now it was almost winter.

----

----

In a certain district of Edo, not very far off the main road, there lay a small, high-class establishment. Its outside, except for size, belied its financial situation – it was simplistic and functional, typical of such buildings. The banner on the front of this simplistic, functional building, the only indication of what particular service this establishment provided, and even that was indirect – that white rice paper banner only bore the legend "Lady Himejima". Inside, in the very front of the building, was a well-lit lobby with a small lounge area complete with a tea table and floor cushions. Several people could sit around the table comfortably and from the build of it, one could guess the usual occupants were young ladies. Everything in that nicely-lit front room was simplistic, elegant, and silken – just about everything about the room was silk. There were silk covers on the floor cushions, silk cloths guarding the wood of the table from condensation off of the small flower vase in the center, and silk backing for the calligraphy paintings on the walls. Everything about the room was soft and delicate, even the walls themselves, delicately constructed of paper and wood – there was no trace of hardness or toughness anywhere, certainly not a bar or lock made of iron.

But that warmly-lit, inviting room belied the harshness of the environment it was the gate to.

----

----

It was early, early morning, too early even for the first rays of sun, and a pathetic creature was almost on the verge waking up, but not quite yet. A torn panel of rice paper let in a few rays of starlight to illuminate a face that must have once been attractive. The skin tone was appealing in the light of the stars, but this light also threw into contrast the negativity in that face. Under the two closed eyes were dark, puffy circles, as though the owner of those eyes had only recently ceased crying after a long, lonely night – the cause was not helped any by the remnants of dark eye makeup. Something, presumably stress, had caused many of the smoky black eyelashes to fall out – in fact, several little black lashes were stuck to her cheeks. What had once been rather magnificent fringes of subtle curls were now patchy-looking and caked with days' worth of old mascara. Dry, cracked lips lay parted a slight fraction, looking as if they had been bitten – at any rate, they looked bruised in spite of their dryness, and painful. Tangles of auburn hair that used to be vibrant and animated now lay in limp snarls around shoulders that were a lot thinner than they used to be. That hair hadn't been washed in a while and the face those tangles framed was shining with oil and slightly smudged with old makeup.

The girl hadn't seen the light of day in a long time, maybe months – though her skin looked like alabaster in the starlight, in any other light, she aged beyond her years and her skin was a yellowish pale color. She wore a sleeping _yukata_ that had once been white – now, due to wear and repeated washings, it was a dismal grey shade, much like the color of the clouds that had been threatening rain for days. Funny, it seemed to her like so long ago since she was haunting the bath house like a ghost in her white sleepwear and terrifying the other girls momentarily. The girl moved in her sleep, curling up a little tighter and then relaxing a bit – she had never broken her habit of sleeping in a fetal position. However, she moved _a lot_ in her sleep, so her blankets were completely twisted and tangled around her thin body. Even her faithful old friend, her black Polarfleece cape, had been converted – by use only, not altered in its physical shape – into one more blanket. She was always cold.

As she shifted her weight again, the collar of her sleeping _yukata_ twisted itself off one shoulder as a blanket's edge fell with it, exposing the skin of the girl's skinny right shoulder to the cold air in the room. She curled up a little tighter and bit her lip roughly in her sleep – her lips had grown used to rough treatment and no longer bled when bitten. They were soft, just like they were supposed to be, when she had on her makeup, but once the painted mask was broken at the end of the day, they showed their true colors – chapped, rough pinkness bordering on yellow, like the rest of her face. Teeth that had spent three years in braces were now just the tiniest bit off-kilter due to the lack of retainer-wearing. Those teeth dug a little harder into the chapped, near-colorless lower lip, the lower jaw pushing forward just a little to pull the lip between the two rows of sharp enamel. It was obvious she was having a bad dream.

Terrible things were screaming through the unfortunate girl's mind – visions of things that should never see the light of the sun, moon, or stars (or the artificial light of a lamp, for that matter). Visions of rape, torture, sadism, and every horrible, gut-wrenching, blood-curdling, humiliating form of sexual exploitation had long ago planted themselves firmly in the girl's inner eye. If the girl had still been in the mindset she had been in when those images had first been planted, she would have said that "long ago" could kiss her royal ass, that the visions were tormenting her _right now_. Now her physical eyes were tightly shut, everything in her trying to somehow will the horrifying images to burn away, shrivel up like leaves, and disappear forever. Her brow furrowed tightly as she saw again what one man had done to her. She swore that if she ever so much as _considered_ thinking that knives or blood were sexy ever again, she would kill herself at the next possible opportunity. Scars, barely even scars more than scabbed cuts, attested to the considerable pain that bastard had brought upon her, and they were everywhere – on her arms and legs, on her back and neck, thin ones on her stomach, on her ankles, and most disturbingly, on her inner thighs.

----

----

**About Three Months Earlier**

"What are you going to do with me?" asked a frightened, confused eighteen-year-old girl, watching the man advance on her.

She had almost gotten used to the almost nightly pain of being with various men who had paid lots of money to be able to take advantage of her in whatever manner they chose. By no means had she submitted – far from it, considering she was still known to put up fights that could be heard all the way in the bath house. This was always the case when she was confronted with a man too old for her or a man just too ugly to put up with – these men were sent packing and always asked for their money back. Because of this, the girl had quickly become acquainted with enormous doses of excruciating pain, typically inflicted by men wielding cord whips. She had become something of a legend in the establishment due to the fact that she had, just as she had said, refused Toshimichi Okubo himself, and Himejima-sama had personally taken the cord whip to the girl's back. Not one of the other girls or women at the establishment could claim the dubious honor of having been whipped by the madam directly. But Nicole Christine Barrington liked it that way, and she wore her stripes with a grim sort of pride. She was the strong one, the leader of the resistance movement and Chaos incarnate – a bit like Robin Hood, she only acted against those who intended to do her or her newfound friends harm. Because of this, Saki, whose wounds had healed to the point where she could work again, had termed Nicole a "good bad girl".

But tonight was different. Oh, it had started out about the same – a young, wealthy man had showed up, demanding to see the _Oiran no Gaijin_, the Foreign Courtesan. Nicole had sized him up like she did with every man who turned up asking, more or less politely, for a night with her – for once, she had found him to be more than satisfactory! He was tall, probably a little taller than Souzou, and strikingly handsome. His hair was a rich chestnut color, his body was slim yet muscular, and his eyes – most unusually – were a sparkling shade of silver. He was so good-looking and wealthy that Nicole wondered what on earth he was doing in _this_ area of town. Thrown off-guard for just a moment, Nicole wondered absently if the man was blind – then she decided he most definitely wasn't when she found herself fighting his focused and hypnotically seductive gaze. He gave her a slow, considering smile as he paid the madam in front of her, shamelessly evaluating her body. Wanting to glare at him, Nicole found that she could not and instead found herself noticing that he had an impeccable set of perfectly straight, white teeth.

_Just like Enishi,_ she thought with a shiver. _Cruelty with elegance… Menace with style… He's evil, but he enjoys it…_

Yes, she decided – something very definite and very precise, though she couldn't put her finger on what, about this man simply exuded evil, and strong evil at that. That icy feeling which was quickly becoming quite familiar to her crept back into her slowly-sinking stomach – she was terrible at reading people, but she could tell that this man could very well be the devil in disguise. But she was almost disarmed as he crossed the room and took her hand, kissing the back of it with the air of an aristocrat. "Almost" packed its bags and jet-setted off for Neptune as the man crooked his arm at his side then guided her hand to rest in the sharp curve of his elbow, treating her – a whore – just as he would treat a cultured lady. As much as she tried to fight her own weakness, it consumed her and her knees almost gave out on her. The man smiled, another slow and dangerous smile, and covered her hand with his, just as Nakamura Makoto had done for Yumi, leading Nicole along the halls. She just let her eyes and mind glaze over in this man's powerful presence, blindly allowing herself to be led along. He was just so romantic…

In hindsight, which is always 20/20 unless you never had a memory to begin with, she knew that she should have known something was up with this man and that it would turn out in a way she didn't like. Hell, she probably knew it that night but something got between her and the small part of her brain that had a minuscule discernible amount of good sense. The man led her to a room that brought a rather goofy-looking smile to her pretty young face – it was the room where the _hitokiri_ had indeed learned some _rurouni _manners, not Kaoru-style but through trial by Chaos. In the center of the room, the futon had been replaced with all its pretty silken pillows around it. Nicole could vividly remember kicking the unfortunate mattress across the room and attempting to beat one of the most dangerous assassins in Japan senseless with one of the silk pillows. That was so wrong, she thought – _funny_, yes, but _wrong_. But those memories quickly fled as the _shoji_ door snapped shut behind her much more forcefully than she would have liked.

"_Hn-hn…_" the man laughed softly, staring at her with those silver eyes – even Shinomori Aoshi's ice-blue gaze couldn't pierce her through like that. "_I had expected much more of a fight from the one they call the spirited Oiran no Gaijin…_"

It was then that Nicole noticed, belatedly, that the man wore Western attire – a black poet's shirt lay open to almost the middle of his pale chest, fitted tan pants were tucked quite nicely into calf-hugging black leather boots, and the high collar of a black trench coat framed his face. Now more than ever, he absolutely _radiated_ menace, cruelty, elegance, style and a myriad of other things all at once. Those silver eyes narrowed as the pale, perfect lips curled into a sinister smile and one black-gloved hand slipped into the opposite sleeve of the black trench coat and came back with something shiny. Wait… thought Nicole – shiny? She looked again and her hazel eyes widened in sheer terror and her mouth dropped open in the same emotion – there before her, those slender black-gloved fingers wrapped sensuously around the handle of a medical scalpel, Western in its design.

"_What? Do you mean to tell me that you're going to cut the fun short already?_" the man asked in a mocking tone, twirling the shining blade in his fingers then tossing it up and catching it perfectly. "_Come now, I won't hurt you… I know very well how to handle one of these._"

Nicole nearly became ill as the man ran his pink, pointed tongue lightly over the razor-sharp blade, cutting a paper-thin slit in the soft muscle and spilling blood onto the wet appendage. He hissed in pleasure, keeping his tongue out like a snake as he pulled the scalpel away, reveling in the sight, scent, and taste of his own crimson life-force. When his squeezed-shut silver eyes opened again, rolling a bit in bliss, he took a moment to focus that hypnotic gaze on Nicole's frightened, deer-in-the-headlights eyes. She met him unwillingly – then she cringed back as he took a step towards her, holding out his bloody blade to her as if he were offering her a priceless gift. The red liquid was pooling on his tongue, which he curved into a catlike scoop to be sure not a drop was wasted, and Nicole wanted to be sick again.

"_Oshiete… Tell me… What is it? Cat got your tongue, o spirited one?_" he asked her in a teasing voice, so much more terrible even than Saitoh Hajime – at least Saitoh had some warmth to his voice.

The man prodded Nicole's lower lip gently with the tip of the blade of the scalpel, trying to coerce her into parting her lips, then frowned as she pressed her mouth closed.

"_Open your mouth,_" he ordered in a civil tone, fixing her with that silver stare. "_Now._"

Nicole squeezed her eyes shut, fighting his hypnosis – she tensed up again as she felt black suede touch her gently under her chin.

"_Perhaps I have been a bit too forceful,_" the man mused, stroking the thin skin of the girl's throat – she would have fainted at the thoughts rushing through his head, all images of blood trailing down the slender column that was her neck. "_Well, I had always heard that gaijin women weren't as delicate as our own, but I suppose I heard wrong… You're so fragile._"

Automatically, Nicole growled at this blatant suggestion that she was weak - never would she allow herself to be thought of as weak!

"_Hn… There's a bit of that spirit I've heard so much about…_" the man said softly, still stroking Nicole's throat – she squeezed her eyes tighter still. "_Maybe the famed Oiran no Gaijin will respond to a tender caress…_"

The auburn-haired girl flinched as she felt something warm and moist trailing heavily over her lips – the man was painting her delicate mouth with his own blood, trying to get her to open up to him. She pressed her lips together harder, drawing in a sharp breath through her nose and gulping hard as she felt a sensation that was becoming sickeningly familiar to her – the feel of blood coursing down her chin. The man was getting tired of being patient and gentle and decided to let the girl know that her act was becoming tiresome. Slowly, he increased the pressure of his caress on her neck, trailing his fingers towards the side of the slim column that housed her windpipe. Nicole shivered as she felt his palm curve against her throat and his fingers pressing carefully behind her jaw bones, letting her know that at any moment, he could change to a stranglehold. She clenched her jaws tighter shut, assuring herself that she could keep him out and maintain control of the situation – well, she wasn't really in control at all, but she liked to believe she was.

Feeling the tension of certain muscles under his fingers and palm, the man made good his subtle threat – his hand tightened suddenly and mercilessly on her throat. Nicole squeaked in fright and reflexively, her mouth opened to gasp for much-needed air – smiling evilly and growling in satisfaction, the man plunged his still-bleeding tongue into her mouth, spreading the bitter coppery flavor around her unwilling orifice. Nicole felt like gagging – in fact, her throat was trying to gag at the feeling of the tip of his abnormally-long tongue trying to force its way in. She had heard of a kiss leading to a man trying to "stick his tongue down her throat", but she had never dreamed it was actually _possible_ for anyone but Alucard. And that was just silly for her to be thinking about, since that was just impossible in every way. But that thought took its leave from her mind as she felt the man's tongue squirming more violently in her mouth, the tip seriously threatening to trigger her gag reflex. His blood was dripping from the corners of her mouth and tears were starting to wend their wet paths down her cheeks, exciting the man kissing her to no end. Just when she thought she was going to be violently ill right then and there, he pulled back and licked his lips, staining his pale skin red.

"Wh-what the hell?" Nicole stuttered, her voice halfway between a gasp and a yelp, as one hand flew to her mouth and the other came up to try and protect her throat from the hand that was still wrapped menacingly around it. "You sick bastard, what the hell are you doing!?"

He didn't answer – he just smiled almost tenderly as he tightened the grip of his hand and pushed her back by her throat, backing her up until he had her pinned against one wall. Sliding his tongue over his lips in a seductive fashion, he brought his other hand up into her line of vision, the one holding the scalpel, and made a great show of pretending to consider the blade, watching it shine in the light of the lamp. The inch-long steel blade glimmered from tang to tip, glowing red with his blood in the golden light – it made Nicole's stomach turn. Pale, bloodstained lips pulled back to reveal those perfectly straight white teeth, complete with canines that were just a little longer than normal. Was this man really a vampire? No, Nicole told herself – that was silly, since vampires weren't real. However, there were still people with the odd taste for blood and this man obviously had it bad… Slowly, the man slid the blade alongside his other hand, dangerously close to the unfortunate girl's throat – then he cocked his head a bit and looked at her with a mockingly considering expression.

"_Well yes, I suppose I am being rather impolite,_" he said condescendingly, smiling at her – he inclined his head towards her in lieu of bowing, once more treating her as he would treat a lady. "_It isn't right to ask for favors before introductions are completed. Watashi wa Sakurai Kei desu. And what would the name of my lovely companion for tonight be?_"

"Why should I tell you?" demanded Nicole, choking on the man's hold on her throat. "I don't mean anything to you, so why bother?"

The man narrowed his eyes at her and tightened his grip slightly.

"_Come, my dear, let's be on amiable terms,_" he said in a slightly clipped, though gracious voice. "_I understand that being a gaijin you may not quite grasp our customs, but typically we give our names before a rapport can be established. Surely wherever you may be from, it is the custom to introduce oneself to new people?_"

Nicole was flummoxed – she was not, by nature, a rude person, but she had little or no patience for those who pissed her off. However, what this man, Sakurai Kei, was saying unfortunately made sense – it was generally a rude thing to do not to introduce yourself. And he had told her his name at least, so she guessed she should just break down and give him hers. Drawing herself up as much as she could, considering her position and the fact that she was still scared out of her wits, she tried to look the man in the eyes. However, this was easier said than done, so she settled for focusing on something imaginary that might have been somewhere past his right shoulder. In her peripheral vision, she could practically see the thoughts going through his head – he thought she was breaking down and letting him win. Well, she might introduce herself, but that didn't mean she was submitting, right?

"I'm Nicole Christine Barrington," she told him in her most level voice, the voice she used to use on the phone with people she didn't know. "Around here, people call me _Nikooru-chan_ or _Niki-chan_."

"_I don't like formalities, even if the formality happens to be a term of endearment,_" Sakurai said coolly. "_And considering my intentions for our relationship, I daresay a bit more intimacy is called for – 'Nikooru' shall suffice. You may call me 'Kei' if you so wish._"

He smiled at her again and stroked her throat with more slow force than was necessary.

"_There. Doesn't it feel better to be polite?_" he asked teasingly. "_Politeness really does help things work in your favor, didn't you know?_"

Nicole glared at him.

"And exactly how is it polite for you to be pinning me against the wall by my throat?" she smarted off, tilting her head as best she could and giving him her most challenging look. "This isn't really comfortable, you know…"

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Sakurai said in perfect English, confusing Nicole – he smiled almost genuinely. "_I studied medicine in England, my dear. I just prefer to use my native language. But that aside, you really do talk too much – it isn't fashionable for a woman to have her mouth moving so uselessly. Try doing something else with it._"

----

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**Back in February of 2006**

Ashley Kathleen Bloom was faring worse than she could ever remember faring in her life – her parents had been gone for almost a year and that she could almost get used to, but now her best friend hadn't even been gone for even a week and she could barely believe it. She had mostly kept to her room, the one beside what had been Nicole's room. No one but the cats went in there anymore – it was just too much for any of the human or canine members of the family to deal with. Ashley had been sent home relatively soon after the chaos of calling parents had started at the school, so she had been in the Barringtons' house for the entire time. The newspapers had indeed managed to make a story of the strange happenings at the private Catholic school downtown, simply because nothing else was happening, so several students had been questioned. Ashley was disgusted at the quotes she read by so many of her schoolmates – of course, the news people had chosen the "popular", teacher-recommended set to question.

"**Unusual Happenings Attributed To Unusual Young Woman**" read the most recent headline, the one that had been released after even more student testimony. "Students referred to their missing schoolmate quite often as 'weird' or 'different'," said one line of that particular article – one that had stirred up quite a nasty stink in the Barrington household. Apparently the reporters had gone a little further into the student body and just happened upon the worst set that they possibly could have, starting with Casey Sheehan and his group. One quote from the tall, freckled boy had described Nicole as "neurotic, hyperactive, and really random" while the loudmouthed African-American boy had called her a "fed-up little attention whore". (The newspaper edited the coarse language in some of the comments, of course.) The squirrelly blonde-haired boy had followed that up with "Yeah, she always wanted attention" and a Cuban boy had agreed – "She did all kinds of s looking for it attention." Kelly, the varsity football team manager, had been one of the few to step up in Nicole's defense – "Well, it was true she liked attention," she had been quoted as saying. "But she really didn't mean anything by it – I don't think it was anything she could help."

_Well of course she could have helped it if she had wanted to_, Ashley groused in her mind – _it was just that she didn't want to 'cos she had more fun the way she was! At least I think that's what it was…_ It wasn't Nicole's fault that she had such an exuberant love for life that she had to share it with everyone she ever met, was it? It just wasn't fair of them to bash Nicole like this when she wasn't there to defend herself – and by God, Ashley knew she could defend herself against just about anything. Then the most pressing and depressing thought in existence at that point kicked its way into her head – she couldn't defend herself from the bubble. It was so unfair, she kept saying in her mind – Nicole could stand against anything and she had proved that over all the years the two girls had known each other. Hadn't she stood up to everyone who had ever tried to take her down? Even if it was out of sheer stubbornness, Nicole Christine Barrington could hold her own against anyone and anything.

----

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**November 1866**

So far away, far back in time and such a distance from home, Nicole was trying so hard not to cry - though why she was denying that to herself, not even she could say. Surely if there had ever been a time that she needed to cry, _deserved_ to cry, this was it. She was on her knees in front of that man - Sakurai Kei - after having one of the most degrading, frightening, disgusting experiences of her life. Certainly she wasn't naive enough not to know what he would demand of her when he pushed her to her knees, but that hadn't meant she was ready to give in! The only reason she had given in to his wishes at all was because of the finality he wordlessly put in the threat of a scalpel's blade at her carotid artery. Now she was on her knees still, coughing and choking because of it. Part of her wished she had kept resisting and let him kill her, but the rest of her pushed that thought away. _She still had to get home _- that was the thought that drove her.

Nicole Christine Barrington was angry - she wasn't sure she had been this angry even at Saitoh! Aoshi, she had been able to forgive, just on the knowledge of what he would go on to do - be a good husband and lover to Misao. Kenshin hadn't really done anything but piss her off, but he had been more comical than anything else. And Souzou... Her mind wouldn't let her think of him at that moment - it would make her cry. Right now, she had more pressing things to deal with... Hatred was boiling inside of her like the disgusting white liquid now churning in her stomach. He had insisted on her swallowing the loathsome product of his pleasure. Every time she coughed a little more of it dripped from her lips - she refused to look up at him and see the ugly satisfaction on his coldly handsome face. Even now, she had it in her to smart off.

"Satisfied now?" she demanded, still refusing to look at him.

The silver-eyed man, who despite of his elegant looks had been so quick to force himself on her that he had neglected to undress himself further than barely taking his trousers down, gracefully bent down on his knee in front of her. Nicole ignored his command that she look at him, continuing to stare at the tatami while trying to avoid looking at the new white stains there. In her mind, the longer she could hold out against him, the longer she could stay true to herself. In his mind, she was just prolonging the inevitable - she would just feel it that much more when he finally broke her. With an elegant smirk on his lips, he slid one slender hand under her chin. With most women, he noticed, all it took was just the right touch on such a delicate, vulnerable area was all it took - some of them found it sensually pleasing and others just gave in to fear. Either way, it worked for him and that was enough. However, Nicole resisted - also resisting the urge to snap at his fingers, figuring he would like that too much.

"_Look at me,_" he commanded once more, applying firm upward pressure on her chin - which she pressed back against, keeping her chin determinedly pointed at the floor. "Look at me."

The second command was spoken in English and reflexively, Nicole looked up - only to be met with a savage backhand to her cheek. Her mouth dropped open as she recovered from the whiplash of the blow and pressed her hand to her face - now she was mad again! As her unnaturally-long fingernails prevented her from making a proper fist, she reared back an open hand and swung at him with the intent on delivering a sharp slap. There was a flash of something as his hand beat hers to the side of his pale face and she closed her eyes. At first, Nicole felt a small pressure and a deep pricking sensation, but when she tried to yank her hand back and felt a jolt of pain from _inside her hand_, she opened her eyes.

"SHIT!" she yelled, not caring who heard her - her good old Southern accent flared up. "You motherfuckin' shithead! What the fuckin' hell did you go and do a goddamn thing like that for!?"

The man with the silver eyes narrowed his silver orbs at her and shifted his hand _just right_ so that the blade in Nicole's palm twisted a bit, causing the girl to yelp with pain - it was then that she realized her hand was completely pierced through.

"_I don't care if you are a common whore and you have no manners - I don't like it when people swear at me,_" he growled at her.

His silver eyes softened and, when Nicole just looked at him with wide eyes, he smiled in the kind of satisfaction that made her want to retch. There were no tears in her wide hazel eyes - she was probably going into shock, she realized, or something like it induced by mental and physical trauma. Tenderly, carefully, as if handling a living statue made of glass, Sakurai Kei slid his free arm around Nicole's waist, guiding her pierced hand up above her head. Her mind attempted to turn itself off as he laid her down on her back and pulled her free hand up to join her injured one. There was a sick feeling rising again in her stomach as she got an idea of what he was going to do. Yes: first, he laid her uninjured hand on the floor above her head, over the futon, just as she knew he would. Then he pulled her pierced hand up and laid it carefully over the other so that they were crossed at the wrist. What happened next made what was left of any color drain from her face - she closed her eyes to block out the terrible mental image.

He drove the point of the scalpel deep into the tatami floor... and as she was opening her eyes, she saw him pulling more of the shining medical blades from various places about his person.

----

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Far away from that place, the Sekihoutai were encamped once again and the camp was alive with the usual flurry of activity. Touya and Kyo had one of their usual squabbles and had been told to arm wrestle over the outcome of their argument, just to keep them from becoming a nuisance - well, more of a nuisance than usual. Reichi was refereeing, a fish bone hanging out of his mouth like usual. Sanosuke and his new friend Katsuhiro - a runaway from an artisan family by the surname of Tsukioka - had been sent fishing. Hideki was poring over the latest book he had been able to get his hands on - a rather beaten, stained, and previously waterlogged copy of Shakespeare's _Othello_.

Miku was sitting with his tentmate, watching the younger boy's eyes skim easily over the strange English symbols and watching his mouth as he read the words silently to himself. He, Miku, could barely read his own native language and couldn't write anything but his own name and the names of his family. In quiet moments like this, he wondered what on earth had gotten an obviously wealthy internationalist family into such petty things as the Revolution. Why hadn't they just picked up and headed to a safe country, like America? That country's name brought his mind back to a place he had left it a long time ago - he hadn't let himself think of that in so long...

How had Nicole fared after he left her? The madam had promised to take care of her - with the condition that she would work. The thought still turned his stomach - Nicole had seemed so pure and innocent when he met her, like an angel. Thoughts of his last argument with his grandfather filtered back to his head - "_It's a sin to defile an angel!_" In the first two months following those events, he almost couldn't stop thinking of her. Then the feelings began to desert him for a while - his mind would become occupied with other things, like guard duty or babysitting Sanosuke and Katsuhiro. Hideki, quiet as he was, had also aided in bringing Miku out of his depressed stupor - he had started teaching him to read and write.

With all this activity going on, the Sekihoutai's captain, Sagara Souzou, was having thoughts of his own, thoughts of the same strange _gaijin_ girl. She hadn't entered his mind in almost six months - so why had she been in his dreams just minutes ago as he had been napping? And why had she been... crying? It had seemed so real - something or someone was hurting her and she was calling for help. She was calling for... For _him_. But that was silly - he just hadn't been with a woman in too long and now he was nursing a hero complex.

Hero complex or not, dreaming of her had awakened a longing for sensation in him. His mind was teasing him with images of her flushed face after he kissed her and his body was remembering the feel of hers. What surprised him was that it was the head on his shoulders, not the other one, reacting to these memories. He rolled his eyes - if he had actually gotten some that night, he would at least have something to pleasure himself with. Normally, he liked a good tease and hell if his mind wasn't teasing the bejesus out of him now! So why wasn't his body reacting?

Bah... He needed a drink again.


End file.
